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AUTHOR: 


MACURDY, GRACE 
HARRIET 


TITLE: 


THE CHRONOLOGY OF 


EXTANT PLAYS OF... 


PLACE: 


LANCASTER, PA. 


DATE: 


1905 





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Macurdy, Grace Harriet, 1865 or 6-1946, 


The chronology of the extant plays of Euripides ... | 
Lancaster, Pa., The New era printing company, 1905. 
v, 128 p. 234°. 


Thesis (ru. p.)—Columbia university. 
Life. 


“A list of the principal 


| works and articles referred to”: Ὁ. ill—v. 














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THE LIBRARIES 









































THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE 


EXTANT PLAYS OF EURIPIDES 


BY 


GRACE HARRIET MACURDY 


Associate Professor of Greek in Vassar College 


A DISSERTATION 


SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
FOR THE DEGREE OF Docror OF PHILOSOPHY 
ΙΝ COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 











A LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS AND ARTICLES 
REFERRED TO IN THIS DISSERTATION. 


Arnold, R. Die chorische Technik des Euripides. Halle, 1888. 


Bates, W. N. The Dating of the Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides. 
(Transactions of the American Philological Association, 1901.) 


Beck, E. A. The Heraclide of Euripides. Cambridge, 1881. 
Beloch, J. Die attische Politik seit Pericles. Leipzig, 1884. 

— Griechische Geschichte. : Strassburg, 1893-1897. 

Berlage, J. Commentatio de Euripide Philosopho. Leyden, 1888. 
Bernhardy,G. Grundriss der griechischen Litteratur. Halle, 1892. 


Boeckh, A. Greece tragcedie principum Aeschyli, Sophoclis, Euri- 
pidis, num ea que supersunt et genuina omnia sunt et forma primi- 
tiva servata, an eorum familiis aliquid debeat ex iis tribui. Heidel- 
berg, 1808. 


Bruhn, E. Iphigenia auf Tauris. Berlin, 1894. 


Croiset, A. and M. Histoire de la littérature Grecque. Paris, 
1887-1899. 


Decharme, P. Euripide et l’esprit de son théatre. Paris, 1893. 

Dieterich, A. Schlafscenen auf der attischen Bihne. (Rheinisches 
Museum, 1891.) 

Dindorf, W. Scholia Greca in Euripidis trageedias ex codicibus 
aucta et emendata. Oxonii, 1868. 

Earle, M. L. The Alcestis of Euripides. London and New York, 
1894. 


Studies in Sophocles’s Trachinians. (Transactions of the 
American Philological Association, 1902.) 


Elmsley, P. Heraclidw, 1815. Medea, 1818. 
Flagg, I. Iphigenia among the Taurians. Boston, 1891. 


Firnhaber,C.G. Die Verdichtigungen Euripideischer Verse. Leip- 
zig, 1840. 


De tempore quo Heraclidas et composuisse et docuisse 
Euripides videatur. (Wiesbaden, 1846.) 


Ueber Euripides’ Herakliden. (Philologus, 1846.) 
Fix, Th. Euripidis Fabule. Paris, 1843. 


111 








iv 
Fraccaroli, J. De Euripidis scribendi artificiis, Auguste Tauri- 
norum, 1885. 


Frazer, J.G. Pausanias’s Description of Greece. London, 1898. 


Giles, P. Political Allusions in the Supplices of Euripides. (Classi- 
cal Review, 1890.) 


Haigh, A.E. The Tragic Drama of the Greeks. Oxford, 1896. 


Hardin, J. Dissertation sur Andromaque. (Histoire del’ Academie, 
1733.) 


Hartung, J. A. Euripides Restitutus. Hamburg, 1840. 

van Herwerden, H. Helena, Lugduni Batavorum, 1895. 

Hermann, G. Euripidis Fabule. Leipzig, 1831-1841. 
Opuscula, 1827-1846. 

Hoeveler, J. De Heraclidis Euripidis. Monasterii, 1868. 


Jebb, R.C. Sophocles: Plays and Fragments. Cambridge, 1887- 
1900. 


Jevons, F. History of Greek Literature. New York, 1886. 
Kaibel,G. Kratinos’ Ὀδυσσῆς und Euripidis Κύκλωψ. (Hermes, 1895.) 


Elektra. Leipzig, 1896. 
Keene, C. H. Euripides,'Electra. London, 1893. 


Kirchhoff, A. Ueber die Entstehungszeit der herodotischen Ge- 
schichtswerkes. Berlin, 1872. 


Koehler, U. Documente zur Geschichte des athenischen Theaters. 
(Mittheilungen des deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, 1878.) 


Lugge, G. Quomodo Euripides in Supplicibus tempora sua re- 
spexerit. Guestfalia, 1887. 


Mahaffy, J. History of Greek Literature. 1880. 
Maass, E. Zur Hekabe des Euripides. (Hermes, 1889.) 


Masqueray, P. Theorie des formes lyriques de la tragédie grecque. 
Paris, 1895. 


Matthiae, A. Euripidis Trageedie et Fragmenta. Lipsizw, 1813. 
Meinecke, A. Aristophanis Comeedie. Leipzig, 1860. 


Miller, K. 0., and Donaldson, J. W. History of the Literature of 
Ancient Greece. London, 1858. 


Nauck, A. Euripidis Trageedie. Lipsiw, 1889. 
Tragicorum Grecorum Fragmenta. Lipsiz, 1889. 
—— Tragice Dictionis Index. Petropoli, 1872. 








Vv 


Paley, F.A. Euripides. London, 1872. 

Patin, H. Etudes sur Euripide. Paris, 1894. 

Patterson, J. Cyclops of Euripides. Boston, 1901. 

Pflugk, I. E., and Klotz, R. Euripidis tragcedie. Hditio tertia. 
Lipsiz, 1867. 

Pierron, A. Histoire de la littérature grecque. Paris, 1894. 

Potthast, H. De Euripidis Heraclidis. Monasterii, 1872. 

Von Premerstein. : Ueber den Mythos in Euripides’ Helena. Philo- 
logus, 1896. 

Rassow, J. Zur Hekabe des Euripides. Hermes, 1887. 

Ribbeck, 0. Zu Sophokles’ und Euripides’ Elektra. (Leipziger 
Studien, 1885.) 

Roscher, W. Leben, Werk, und Zeitalter des Thukydides. Got- 
tingen, 1842. 

Rutherford, W. G. Scholia Aristophanica. London and New 
York, 1896. 

Sandys, J.E. The Bacche of Euripides. Cambridge, 1885. 


Schmidt, W. Qua ratione Euripides res sua tate gestas adhibuerit 
in Heraclidis. Halle, 1881. 

Schenkl, K. Die politischen Anschauungen des Euripides. Wien, 
1862. 

Steiger, H. Warum schrieb Euripides seine Elektra? (Philologus, 


1897.) 
Walz, C. Rhetores Greci. Londoni et Lutetisz, 1834. 


Wedd, N. Orestes, Cambridge, 1895. 

Weil, H. Sept Tragédies d’Euripide. Paris, 1877. 

von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. Analecta Euripidea. 1875. 
— Heracles, Berlin, 1895. 

-- Der Miitter. Bittgang, Berlin, 1899. 

-- Die beiden Elektren. (Hermes, 1883.) 


Zielinski, Th. Die Gliederung der altattischen Komédie. Leipzig, 
1885. 

Zirndorfer, H. De Chronologia Fabularum Euripidearum. Mar- 
burg, 1839. 





THE CHRONOLOGY OF 
THE EXTANT PLAYS OF EURIPIDES 





Of the eighteen extant plays of Euripides eight are securely 
dated by ancient testimony. These are the Alcestis (438), the 
Medea (431), the Hippolytus (428), the Troades (415), the 
Helen (412), the Orestes (408), and, for all practical purposes, 
the Bacchants,’ and the Aulid Iphigenia. Still another, the 
Pheenisse, may be placed within certain narrow limits on the 
strength of statements ancient but—unfortunately—incomplete. 

The criteria which serve in determining the date of the re- 
maining dramas are of various kinds: parodies in the comedies 
of Aristophanes which afford termini ante quos, allusions to 
past and contemporaneous political events, the attitude of the 
poet toward politics and religion, and the character of the play 
itself. The extant dramas which are exactly dated range from 
438 B. C. to the year of the poet’s death. They are sufficient 
in number to show a development of technique and a growth of 
mannerism which are important factors in determining the dates 
of the remaining dramas. Indeed three groups of plays, sepa- 
rated by stylistic differences, are easily discernible among the 
surviving plays, in spite of the fact that the earliest of them, 
the Alcestis, was composed when Euripides was already more 
than forty years old. 

The points of technique which distinguish the groups are. 
both metrical and linguistic. In the metre the increasing num- 
ber of resolutions in the iambic trimeter, the use of trochaic 
tetrameters, the revival of which was a phenomenon attending 
the increasing freedom of the trimeter, the extension of the use 
of mixed dochmiacs, and the greater range of variety in the 


1 Produced after the death of Euripides. 
1 











Ω 
καὶ 


metres employed are points indicative of an advance on the part 
of the poet along certain lines which are of value in assigning 
a play to certain years, or rather to certain periods. Further 
considerations are the metrical constitution of the choruses in 
the matter of responsions, the growing lack of symmetry in the 
threnodies, the extended use of monodies and ἀμοιβαῖα, the 
alternate songs of actors. Another test of the period to which a 
play belongs is the relative relevancy of the songs sung by the 
chorus to the situation in which the singers find themselves. 
It is recognized that irrelevancy to the plot and situation on the 
part of the chorus is more and more marked in Euripides’s later 
dramas. The verbal style increasingly lacks restraint as the 
lyrical parts expand. Repetitions of musical words and the 
subjection of sense to sound in the lyric portions mark even the 
finest of the later dramas, and the gradual growth of this man- 
nerism gives an indication which is of use in assigning a play 
to the group to which it belongs. Another important considera- 
tion is the inter-relation of the plays in point of borrowed phrase, 
motive, or situation. This borrowing or repetition may be of 
such a nature as to be absolutely inconclusive, or there may be 
so plain an indication of an advance in technique, or at any rate 
of an adaptation of material, as to settle the question of priority. 
The relation of the art of Sophocles to the art of Euripides 
is another question which forces itself upon us in discussing 
certain plays of Euripides with reference to chronology. The 
two poets inevitably affected one another’s work, contemporaries 
and rivals as they were, contesting for the same prizes, and 
each treating subjects which had been handled by the other. 
There is the plainest evidence of their mutual influence in the 
work of both poets. And thus a play of Sophocles may afford 
a terminus post or ante quem for a play of Euripides. 

The problems which are to be solved by some or all of these 
means according to the individual play have been essayed by 
various scholars of the last two centuries. Several chronologies 
of the plays have been published either separately or in con- 


3 


nection with the editions of Euripides, and some of the plays 
have been made the subjects of a number of individual discus- 
sions. Universally satisfying results have not been reached, 
and not only the popular hand-books, but the critical works of 
scholars as well, contain statements to which exception must be 
taken. The lack of unanimity in dating the plays is apparent 
on a comparison of the various opinions of critics. The Hera- 
clide has been assigned to years ranging from 445 B. C. to 418. 
The Andromache has been variously dated 430-424, 424-418, 
and 413-412. The Ion is counted now among the poet’s early 
extant work, and now among his latest. The Heracles is de- 
clared by some to have preceded Sophocles’s Trachinians, by 
others to have been suggested by that play. The same ques- 
tion of priority, with notable scholars on either side of it, exists 
about the Electra of Sophocles and the Electra of Euripides. 
Roscher and others place the Tauric Iphigenia as early as 
425 B.C. Others place it in 414, and yet others make it follow 
the Helen and give it a place among the latest plays. The 
Supplices is dated both before and after the Peace of Nicias. 
In his Analecta Euripidea Professor von Wilamowitz-Moellen- 
dorff says of the drama— Post Nicise pacem in commendationem 
foederis Argivi scriptam esse fabula se ipse testatur”. In the in- 
troduction to “‘ Der Miitter Bittgang” he argues that the play 
must have been composed either in 422 or, possibly, 421, before 
the peace and with the view of creating feeling for it. Other 
critics are divided between these two opinions. The Phcenisse 
is variously dated between the limits 411 and 407. With 
regard to the Hecuba there is little dispute, and the Cyclops 
has not had frequent treatment. 

The chronology of the plays has been taken up in a separate 
treatise by Zirndorfer and by Fix in the preface to the Didot 
edition, 1843. Hartung gives a chronological table in his 
Euripides Restitutus sive Scriptorum Euripidis Ingeniique Cen- 
sura, and has discussed the dates of some of the plays in con- 
nection with their analyses. Musgrave has a general chrono- 





4 


logia scenica, Hermann, Pflugk, and other editors usually 
consider the problems connected with the date of the individ- 
ual play in the preface to the same. Jebb discusses the date 
of the extant plays in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nauck 
expressly avoids the subject: “de chronologia tragediarum 
Kuripidearum adeo rara sunt et manca testimonia ut plerarum- 
que ztas nobis ignota sit, neque in animo est coniecturas ea de 
re periclitari utique lubricas”.' A chronology of the plays 
with comment is given by von Wilamowitz—Moellendorff in 
Analecta Euripidea, pp. 147-157. Berlage in his Commentatio 
de Euripide Philosopho? has an introductory general discussion 
of the order of the dramas, and Murray in his recent critical 
edition of Euripides gives a list of the plays “secundum 
ordinem temporum quibus acte esse videntur”. Separate 
plays have been examined for the purpose of determining 
their respective dates by Hardion, Boeckh, Firnhaber, Bergk, 
von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Vahlen, Bruhn, Kaibel, and 
others. 


I subjoin a chronological table of the extant plays in which 


I have dated them according to the years which a study of 
the plays and an examination of the literature of the subject 
appears to me to warrant or to render possible. I then take 
up the question of the date of each play, following in the dis- 
cussion the order of my chronological table. 


B. C. 
Cyclops Date unknown ; probably before the Al- 


cestis ; certainly before the Hecuba. 
Alcestis 438. 


Medea 431. 
Heraclide 430, after the first Spartan invasion, and 


after the Theban attack on Platea. 
Hippolytus 428. 


1 Nauck, Euripides, I, xxvii. 
* Leyden, 1888. 





Hecuba 425-423. 
Suppliants 420, after the treaty with Argos. 
Heracles 420-418. 
Andromache 417, after the battle of Mantinea. 
Jon 416-414. 
Troades 415. 
Iphigenia among 
the Taurians 414-413. 
Electra 413. 
Helen 412. 
Pheenissee 410-409. 
Orestes 408. 
Bacchants 407. 
Iphigenia at Aulis 407. 


The Rhesus I have not taken into account, regarding it as 
fully established that this play is not the work of Euripides 
and belongs to the following century.’ 


THE CyYCLOPS 


There is no traditional evidence for the date of the Cyclops ; 
there are no allusions in the play to aid in determining its 
period, and the usual tests of metrical technique and verbal 
style cannot be applied with certainty, owing to the fact that 
this play is the sole example of its kind that has come down 
to us. 

The nature of the satyric drama will account for the large 
percentage of resolutions in the iambic trimeter, and the com- 
bination of several resolved feet in the same line. It is of sig- 
nificance, however, that several of the later tragedies go beyond 
the Cyclops in freedom in this respect.” The shortness of the 


1 Rolfe, J. C., The Tragedy Rhesus, 1893. (Harvard Studies in Class. 
Phil., IV.) a 

2Rumpel, Philologus, 28; Die Auflésungen im Trimeter des Euripides. 
Statistics given by Humphreys, M. W., A. J. P., I. pp. 187 ff. 





6 


lyrical parts is noted by Bergk, who, however, regards the play 
as one which by no means “zu den ilteren Arbeiten des Euri- 
pides gehért”. The shortness of the play per se might lead 
us to place it early, but we have no knowledge of the compar- 
ative length of satyr-dramas, and it would be reasonable to 
infer that a short play of this type would be given after the 
tragic trilogy." The vocabulary of the Cyclops is essentially 
tragic, although the subject-matter naturally introduces many 
words from pastoral and vulgar parlance. This character was 
evidently common to the vocabulary of the satyr-dramas in gen- 
eral. Compare Horace Ars Poetica, vv. 234 ff. 

Non ego inornata et dominantia nomina solum 

verbaque, Pisones, Satyrorum scriptor amabo. 

Metrically and stylistically, then, there is nothing distinctly 
in favor of a late date for this drama, while some evidences of 
comparative restraint and conservatism in technique and vocabu- 
lary, considering the nature of the plot, may be taken, though 
with due reservation in view of our ignorance of the constitu- 
tion of other satyr-dramas, as pointing to an early date. 

A terminus ad quem has been discovered for the play in the 
Hecuba, which Kaibel has shown to have derived a motive 
from the Cyclops. This is the blinding of Polymestor, the 
Thracian king, which is, as Kaibel proves, suggested by the 
blinding of Polyphemos. The passages in question are the 
closing scene of the Cyclops (lines 663 to end), and the last 
act of the Hecuba (lines 1035 to the end). ‘There are notable 
likenesses in situation and expression. Both victims receive 
the punishment of blinding for inhuman deeds. Dramatic 


sympathy is in both cases against them. The Cyclops in his 
cave cries out in anguish : 


ὌὮ μοι, κατηνθρακώμεθ᾽ ὀφαλμοῦ σέλας" 


1Croiset, Histoire de la littérature grecque, 3, Chap. ix. 

2 Kaibel, Hermes, 30 (1895), Kratinos’ Ὀδυσσῆς and Euripides Κύκλωψ, 
pp. 82 ff. 

Sy. 663. 





7 


while the chorus of satyrs wait exulting outside, and respond : 


Καλός γ᾽ ὁ παιάν: μέλπε μοι τόνδ᾽ ad, Κύκλωψ. 
Likewise Polymestor cries : 
Ὥ μοι τυφλοῦμαι φέγγος ὀμμάτων τάλας, 
and his words are overheard with joy by the chorus of waiting 


Trojan women. 
The threatenings of both blinded ones are couched in similar 


terms : 
᾽ » / lol ” ’ 
ἀλλ᾽ οὔτι μὴ φύγητε τῆσδ᾽ ἔξω πέτρας 
χαίροντες, οὐδὲν ὄντες - ἐν πύλαισι γὰρ 
σταθεὶς φάραγγος ταῖσδ᾽ ἐναρμόσω χέρας. 


ἀλλ᾽ οὔτι μὴ φύγητε λαιψηρῷ ποδί: 
βάλλων γὰρ ὄγκων τῶνδ᾽ ἀναρρήξω μυχούς. 
ἰδού, βαρείας χειρός ὁρμᾶται βέλος." 

Further both victims take vengeance, such as is left them, 
by citing oracles of ill-omen for Odysseus and Hecuba respec- 
tively. The latter both reply in a defiant spirit. And finally 
both pieces end with the weighing of the anchor and the voy- 
age back to Greece. 

Kaibel, after indicating the resemblances, points out that the 
scene in the Cyclops is borrowed directly from Homer, whereas 
that in the Hecuba is an invention of Euripides even to the 
name of the Thracian tyrant. 

This, on the whole convincing, argument of Kaibel assigns to 
the Cyclops as terminus ante quem 425 B. C., the probable 
date of the Hecuba, or at any rate 424 B. C., the latest possible 
date for that play. Kaibel further argues that dramas with 
such great mutual resemblances could not have been composed 
except with a considerable interval between them, ‘da ein 
ordentlicher Dichter nicht leicht innerhalb so kurzer Zeit sich 


ἵν, 1035. 
2 Cyclops, 666-668. 
3 Hecuba, 1039-1041. Kaibel here follows the inferior authorities which 


assign line 1041 to Polymestor, and so obtains lines equal in number in the 
respective speeches of the Cyclops and Polymestor. The sense, however, as 
well as the preponderance of traditional evidence is against this. 





8 


selbst wiederholen wird”. This argument fails, however, if 
applied to such plays as the Tauric Iphigenia and the Helen, 
which, for all their likeness, appear to have been composed 
within two years of each other. A stronger argument for 
pushing the date of the Cyclops back before 430 and earlier 
still is found in the comparison which Kaibel makes between 
the Cyclops and the Aleestis. 
In comparing Cyclops, 420-426 : 


ς θέ δ᾽ δ... ἃ 3 06 » ἡ x 
HNOVEVTA O AUTOY WS επησσομην εγὼ Κ. T. *y 


with the scene in the Alcestis 756-764, where Admetus’s ser- 
vant describes the conduct of Heracles in the house of mourn- 
ing, Kaibel says: “Mir scheint die Aehnlichkeit der Situation 
so wohl wie der Ausnutzung auf der Hand zu liegen, und ich 
persénlich kann mir nicht denken, dass, wer einmal ein so 
schénes Bild gezeichnet hatte wie das in der Alkestis, den 
gleichen Gegenstand bei spiiterer Gelegenheit so geringschiitzig 
und fast seiner selbst vergessend hiitte wieder aufnehmen sollen. 
Ich glaube daher dass der Kyklops iter ist als die Alkestis 
vom Jahre 438 ”’, 

He continues with the argument: ‘ Und je iilter das Satyr- 
drama wird, desto weniger wird der so iirmlich gerathene Agon 
zwischen Odysseus und Polyphem (283) anstiéssig sein”. He 
concludes with the expression of the opinion that the rhetoric 
of Odysseus in this scene is so weak and incomplete that it can 
only be explained on the ground of the unpractised hand of the 
poet, who could produce such different effects rhetorically in 
438, when he represents the strife between Admetus and 
Pheres. Kaibel, therefore, puts the Cyclops before the Alcestis 
and among Euripides’s earliest extant efforts. 

In a recent edition of the Cyclops,’ the editor, Mr. Patterson, 
questions the priority of the Cyclops to the Alcestis for the 
reason that he finds frequent parodies of the Cyclops in the 
Acharnians of Aristophanes and but one parody of the Alcestis 
in that play. He therefore argues that the Alcestis was less 


Cyclops, Patterson, J., Boston, 1901. 





9 


distinctly in mind with Aristophanes when he composed the 
Acharnians than the Cyclops, and so is earlier. 

But here, as in other cases, “muss weniger gezahlt als gewogen 
werden”. The argument cited above is in itself trivial, for the 
dramas of Euripides, early or late, are ridiculed by Aristoph- 
anes, without regard to chronology, according as he finds them 
effective for his purpose. The Alcestis was always clearly 
enough before the mind of Aristophanes. Witness the many 
parodies upon it from the Acharnians down to the Frogs. 
Further the well-known parody of the Alcestis in line 893 of 
the Acharnians is absolutely unmistakable, a shameful travesty 
of a pathetic verse of Euripides (Alcestis, 367), whereas the 
parodies on lines from the Cyclops which Mr. Patterson cites 
from the Acharnians are without exception mere accidental 
verbal coincidences in ordinary colloquial expressions, which 
were such common property that no reminiscence could possibly 
be suggested by their use in the play of Aristophanes. 

It appears then that, though the data for determining the 
time of the play are very meagre, Kaibel has discovered for it 
a terminus ante quem in the Hecuba, and is probably right in 
placing it before the Alcestis. The metre and style of the play 
are not against this theory, and in all probability the Cyclops 
is the earliest extant play of Euripides. 


THE ALCESTIS 


The Alcestis is exactly dated by the hypothesis emanating 
from Aristophanes of Byzantium. He says: ἐδιδάχθη ἐπὶ 
Γλαυκίνου ἄρχοντος. The words that follow have been restored 
by Dindorf: ὀλυμπιάδος πέ ἔτει δευτέρῳ, since that was the year 
of the archonship of Glaucinus. The play was evidently 
fourth in a tetralogy, as the hypothesis states: πρῶτος ἦν 
Σοφοκλῆς, δεύτερος Ἐῤριπίδης Κρήσσαις, ᾿Αλκμέωνι τῷ διὰ 
Ψωφῖδος, Τηλέφῳ, ᾿Αλκήστιδι. 

It therefore fulfilled the function of a satyr-drama like the 
Cyclops, but is entirely distinct in type from that play ; and, in 





10 


the words of Professor Earle: “ It seems just to regard this 
play as an attempt on Euripides’s part to open a new channel 
for the drama”’.' Nevertheless the fact that the play is, as the 
hypothesis states, σατυρικώτερον, ὅτι εἰς χαρὰν Kal ἡδονήν Ka- 
ταστρέφει παρὰ τὸ τραγικόν, accounts for a certain degree of 
license in its style, although it belongs to the older and severer 
group of plays. It has as large a number of resolutions in the 
iambic trimeter as the Medea, composed seven years after it.’ 
It contains the first of those ἀμοιβαῖα which become so char- 
acteristic of Euripidean technique that only eight of his extant 
dramas are without them.® The other dramas of the oldest 
group, the Medea, the Heraclide, and the Hippolytus do not 
contain such duets.* The duet in the Alcestis, like that in 
the Andromache, is epirrhematic and antistrophic, thus not 
approaching the irregularity of the later ἀμοιβαῖα." The repe- 
tition of words is much more frequent in this play than in the 
Medea and the Heraclide, and in this respect the Alcestis is 
on a level with the Hippolytus, a play of ten years later.° 

The technique of the play, then, taken in connection with 
its date, is interesting and instructive, in view of the fact that 
the Alcestis is a substitute for such a play as the (probably) 
earlier Cyclops ; and yet, while widely separated from that play 
by its comparative rigor of composition, it does not stand en- 
tirely with the severer dramas of the oldest group which are 
subsequent to it in point of time. 


THE MEDEA 


The date of the Medea also is fixed by information given in 
the hypothesis by Aristophanes of Byzantium, as follows: 
ἐδιδάχθη ἐπὶ Πυθοδώρου ἄρχοντος ὀλυμπιάδος πζ' ἔτει a. 


1 Earle, Alcestis, London and New York, 1894, p. xii. 

2 Rumpel, op. cit. 

5. Masqueray, Théorie des formes lyriques de la tragédie grecque, Paris, 
1895, pp. 220 ff. 

4 Masqueray, op. cit., p. 222. 

5 Fraccaroli, De Eurip. scribendi artificiis, Auguste Taurinorum, 1885. 

§ Masqueray, op. cit., pp. 266 ff. 











11 


Πρῶτος Εὐφορίων, δεύτερος Σοφοκλῆς, τρίτος Εὐριπίδης Μηδείᾳ, 
Φιλοκτήτῃ, Δίκτυι, Θερισταῖς σατύροις. 

It was performed in the spring of 431 B. C., before the 
Spartan invasion of that year. The chorus sings, v. 826, of 
the χώρας ἀπορθήτου of the children of Erechtheus. 

In every respect this play is representative of the oldest, 
most conservative group of plays. The iambic trimeter is 
strict, there are no innovations and no startling variety in the 
choral metres, which are chiefly dactylo-epitritic and logacedic ; 
there are no duets or monodies, and the κομμός is regularly 
antistrophic with anapestic epirrhema, as in the Ajax of Soph- 
ocles and the Prometheus of Aischylus'. The cases of ἐπίξευξις 
are but five in number, and of these only one is in the lyric 
portion. Now it is in the songs that the repetition of words 
becomes the vice in Euripides that is ridiculed in the famous, 
much-cited passage in the Frogs of Aristophanes, lines 1351 ff. : 


, 5 > 

ὃ δ᾽ ἀνέπτατ᾽ ἀνέπτατ᾽ εἰς αἰθέρα 
‘ » 

κουφοτάταις πτερύγων ἀκμαῖς, 

> \ δ᾽ 5» > Ww / 

ἐμοὶ OAYE ἄχεα κατέλιπε' 


’ 
δάκρυα δάκρυά τ᾽ ἀπ᾿ ὀμμάτων 
Ν 
ἔβαλον ἔβαλον ἁ τλάμων. 


The Medea is, then, a normal example of the poet’s work in 
tragedy in the period in which it was composed, and a com- 
parison of other dramas with it as a norm gives valuable means 
for determining the dates of some of the disputed plays’. 


THE HERACLIDZA 


There exists no traditional testimony for the date of the 
Heraclide, and about no play of Euripides has there been more 
discussion. It has been assigned to years varying from 445— 
444 B. C. to 418-17. The character of the play accounts for 


1 Herodian, Rhet. 8, 608 Walz. 


*Cf. for supposed political references in the play, Lloyd, The Age of 
Pericles, I, 377 ff. 





this great variety of opinion. 


It is a political piece written 


with reference to a definite political situation at Athens, and 
it is the attempt to fit the temper of the play and its allusions 
to the history of Athens as we know it from other sources that 
has led to widely-differing theories of its date. 

The variety of opinion is illustrated in the following table, 
which gives the dates advocated by scholars who have either 
investigated the subject independently or else have adopted the 


dating given by others. 
Beeckh, A., 


Gree. Trag. Princip., 1808 


Elmsley, 
ad Eur. Med. 1822 


Hermann, G., 
Opuse. ITI, p. 145, 
Zirndorfer, H., 
1839. 
Fix, Th., 
1843. 
Hartung, J. A., 
Euripides Restitutus, 
p. 312. 
Firnhaber, 
1846. 
Miller and Donaldson, 
1858. 
Bernhardy, 
1859. 


Ol. 90. ὃ 
418-17 


“Ex iis Euripidis fabulis 
quas nunc habemus quat- 
tuor sunt que ceteras zetate 
superare videntur, Medea, 
scilicet, Hippolytus, Al- 
cestis, et Heraclide. He 
enim numeros habent 
puriores et severiores.” 


agrees with Elmsley. 

01.88. 3 or 4 
425-4 

Circa 0]. 84 
444 

Early years of the Pelopon- 
nesian War. 


432-1, before the outbreak 
of the war. 

In Ol. 89, 
421 

Ol. 90, 
420 

















Pflugk, 
1867. 


Theis, J., 
1868. 
Pierron, 
1869. 
Potthast, 
1872. 
Bergk, 
1872. 
Paley, 
1874. 
Heeveler, 
1874. 


Von Wilamowitz-Meellendorff, 


Analecta Euripidea. 
1875. 
Jebb, R. C., 
Encye. Brit., 1878. 
Mahaffy, J. P., 
1880. 


Schmidt, W., 
1881. 


Campbell, L., 


Between Ol. 89. 2, 3, 
Ol. 88. 2, 
430-426 

Ol. 87. 2, 

430 

421 


Ol. 87. 1, 
431 
Ol. 87. 3, 
429 
418, or earlier. 


430 


Between 430 and 427 


418-417 

Ol. 88-90, 428-420. 

“A political pamphlet di- 
rected against the Argive 
party in Athens, during 
the Peloponnesian War.” 

‘¢Non igitur ante Alcestim 
(Fixius) neque eo demum 
anno quo Boeckhius voluit 
hance fabulam actam esse 
demonstravisse mihi vi- 
deor. Potius medium 
inter duas definitiones 
tempus statuendum esse 
putamus.” 


417 





Sophocles, I 1. 275, 
1881. 

Jevons, F., 424-418 
1886. 

Decharme. 430-427, following Wila- 
1893. mowitz. 

Patin, “ Une opinion assez vraisem- 
7th edition of Etudes sur les blable place la composi- 
tragiques Grecs, tion et représentation des 

Héraclides quelque temps 
aprés ” (i. e., les Suppli- 
ants). 

Haigh, Probably 430 or 429 
1894. 

Croiset, “Les Hér. appartient mani- 
1899. festement au temps de la 

guerre du Péloponnése.”’ 


By no means all of these expressions of opinion merit serious 
consideration and some of them indicate cursory reading of the 
play, or at least an ignorance of the contemporary political 
situation in Athens. For example, what can Dr. Mahaffy 
mean by his statement that the play is a political pamphlet 
directed against the Argive party in Athens during the Pelo- 
ponnesian war? Here a definition of terms seems necessary. 
One wishes to know just what is meant by the Argive party in 
Athens during the Peloponnesian war. If Alcibiades and his 
followers are meant, the dating of Mahafty hardly reaches the 
time of their activity. 

Those who have studied the question more thoroughly have, 
for the most part, come to one of two conclusions. It is evi- 
dent that the play has a political animus. The question against 
whom the animus is directed is of importance in determining 
the date. Those who take the references to Argos au pied de 
la lettre think that the play was composed in 418 B. C., or in 


15 


one of the years immediately preceding. Those who believe 
that the play is anti-Spartan rather than anti-Argive place it at 
or just before the inception of the war, or in its very early 
years. 

Fix stands alone in placing the drama before the Pelopon- 
nesian war. His‘ arguments are — first, the metrical construc- 
tion which puts the play among the earliest extant dramas of 
Euripides ; second, the tone of the play, which he says indicates 
that at the time of its composition Athens was in a peaceful 
and flourishing state with the ancestral piety yet preserved to 
the degree that Euripides himself, the later free-thinker, here 
respects the established religion and its institutions; third, the 
veiled character of the attack on Sparta, which he regards as 
evidence that the play was written before the beginning of the 
Peloponnesian war ; fourth, the lines of the play, 1026 τῆ, 
which he regards as an “ ex eventu rei predictio”’, referring to 
the expedition of Plistoanax in the third year of the eighty- 
third Olympiad. No importance is any longer attached to this 
opinion of Fix’s, whose arguments for the most part show 
an inadequate conception of the play and have been easily met. 
It has been shown that the note of discontent and scepticism 
is not wanting in this play’, and the inaptness of the oracle 
for the campaign of Plistoanax has been noted, as well as the 
pointlessness of an attempt to arouse anti-Spartan sentiment at 
a time when the Athenians were making the thirty years’ peace 
with Sparta.* Fix’s dating may therefore be disregarded. He 
has found no followers. 

The opinion of Beeckh* deserves and has received more atten- 
tion. It is the following : ‘‘ Postremo etiam Heraclidee ad res 
publicas pertinet: ex conviciis in Argivos ibi iactis apparet 
doctam esse, quum bellum Argivi pararent adversus Athenienses : 


1 Fix, Th., Euripidis Fabule, 1843, Preefatio, Chronologia Fabuiarum. 
2 Pottharst, H., De Euripidis Heraclidis, Monasterii, 1872, p. 14. 

3 Heveler, J., De Her. Eur., Monasterii, 1868, pp. 46-47. 

‘ Beckh, A., Trag. Graec. Princ., Heidelberg, 1808, p. 190. 





10 


quod longius foret, si vellem singillatim persequi: unus suffi- 
ciat locus vs. 285. 


Φθείρου' τὸ cov yap “Apyos ov δέδοικ᾽ ἐγώ, 


etc. Cf. precipue vss. 354 sqq. 759 sqq. etc. Itaque coniicio 
actam trageediam Ol. xc, 8. quum rupto foedere Argivi pacem 
cum Laconibus facerent, Athenienses autem bellum inferrent, 
efficientibus optimatibus (Thucyd. V, 76 sq.), qui ipsi in Hera- 
clidis Euripidis iniuriam faciunt: anno tamen proximo, resti- 
tuto Argis populari imperio, cum Atheniensibus in gratiam 
redeunt (Thuc. V, 82. coll. Dodwell. Annal. Thucyd. p. 687) 
unde calculus noster fit etiam firmior.”’ 

The play, then, according to this conception of it, must 
have been composed in the months between the beginning of 
the winter of 418 B. C., and the summer of 417 B.C. At 
the beginning of the winter the party in Argos that was 
opposed to democracy and favorable to Sparta succeeded in 
getting its way in consequence of the disaster at Mantinea. 
Argos came to terms with Sparta and took up a position of 
hostility toward Athens. In the spring the Spartans and the 
Thousand Argives (οἱ χίλιοι λογάδες) who had fought so 
efficiently at Mantinea overthrew the Argive democracy, καὶ 
ὀλιγαρχία ἐπιτηδεία τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις κατέστη. This oligar- 
chy was itself overthrown in the summer, friendly relations with 
Athens were resumed, and, with the help of Athenian carpenters 
and masons, the Argives, men and women alike, started to build 
a long wall down to the sea, that in case of a land attack pro- 
visions might be brought in by sea in Athenian ships. It is 
clear from the narration of Thucydides that the short-lived 
alliance with Sparta was the work of of édéyor, whose govern- 
ment was legally established πρὸς ἔαρ and overthrown τοῦ 
ἐπιγιγνομένου θέρους. The disaffection toward Athens was only 
temporary and partial. The state of feeling at Argos must have 
been well understood in Athens from the time of the passing 


1 Thuc. V. 81. 


17 


of the vote to make terms with Sparta (καὶ γενομένης πολλῆς 
ἀντιλογίας" ἔτυχε γὰρ καὶ ὁ ᾿Αλκιβιάδης παρών) to the time when 


Athenian workmen came to help the Argives build the walls of 
defense. 

There is nothing in the Heraclide that gives the slightest 
suggestion of this situation. The play breathes general defiance 
and hatred of a dramatic Argos, a literal interpretation of 
which is surely inappropriate at a time when the sister democ- 
racy had been forced by a disastrous defeat and by the machi- 
nation of an aristocratic clique working in Sparta’s interests to 
adopt a course of action at variance with her traditions and 
desire, a course speedily repudiated. That the Heraclide is a 
“ Gelegenheitsstiick ” is absolutely evident. If written at this 
juncture (418 B. C.), it would seem merely to give utterance to 
a blind and ill-considered rage against Argos, imputing to the 
δῆμος of that hitherto friendly state the sins of the ὀλίγοι, whom 
the Argive people with good cause hated. It is clear that the 
interests of the Argive δῆμος and those of Athens were at this 
moment identical, and a general attack on the whole city because 
of the temporary policy of the minority is hardly to be thought 
of as emanating from Euripides at this time. 

With regard to the inferences drawn from the dramatic 
use of Argos, Roscher’ well says that the “Jungfrau von Or- 
leans ” gives quite as much reason for the inference that it was 
brought before the public during an alliance with France and 
a war with England. 

The case is quite different with the references to Sparta in 
the Andromache and to Thebes in the Suppliants. There the 
use of the names is no longer dramatic and vicarious, but cor- 
responds to the facts. But besides the political consideration 
there is an absolute proof that the Heraclide was composed 
before 422 B. C. in the fact that a line of the Heraclide is par- 
odied in a line of the Wasps of Aristophanes, brought out in that 


‘Roscher, W., Leben und Zeitalter des Thukydides, Gottingen, 1842, pp. 
543-544. 





18 


year. There can be no doubt that the line in question (Wasps 
1160) ἐχθρῶν παρ᾽ ἀνδρῶν δυσμενῆ καττύματα is a caricature of 
ἐχθροῦ λέοντος δυσμενῆ (Stephanus for codd. δυσγενῆ) βλαστή- 
vata; for not only is the cadence of the two lines the same, 
but two strikingly Euripidean mannerisms are parodied, namely 
his love for the word δυσμενής and his use of the plural of 
abstract nouns in -~a —a characteristic of his style often ridi- 
culed by Aristophanes. Cf. Ach. 426, πεπλώματα: 432, 
ῥακώματα : Frogs, 1315, πηνίσματα : Thesm., 1116, νοσήματα." 

This line of Aristophanes then is sufficient to show that 
the play cannot be anti-Argive, since it must have been com- 
posed before 422 B. C., before any unfriendliness had arisen 
between Athens and Argos. We may therefore turn our atten- 
tion to the theories of the critics who have fixed upon a date 
at or near the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, noting first 
one other opinion, that of Zirndorfer, who holds that the play 
was composed in 425-424 B.C? His position is entirely 
untenable, but deserves mention as an exemplum in terrorem 
of subjective theorizing without regard to facts. He makes a 
division of Euripides’s plays into three periods, those of the 
first being characterized by few metrical resolutions, a single 
action, and a tragic outcome: those of the third by many 
metrical resolutions, a double action and a happy ending ; those 
of the second intermediate in all these respects — in point of 
metre, in hovering between a double and a single action, and 
in having an ending neither decidedly happy nor decidedly 
unhappy. He cites four dramas that support his theory, the 
Medea, the Hippolytus, the Helena, and the Orestes.2 He 
finds that in A’schylus only tragic endings (sic) are usual and 
sees in this a degeneration in the development of Euripides’s 
dramatic genius. 

In the second of these arbitrary classes he puts the Heraclide. 
This period extends from 428 to 408. The Heraclide he 


1Cf. Fraccaroli, p. 31. 
?Zirndorfer, H., De Chron. Fab. Eur., Marburg, 1837. 
’See Roscher, op. cit., p. 554. 


19 


holds was produced in 425 B. C., and the purpose of the play 
was to urge peace with Sparta. The Heraclide typify the 
Spartans. Roscher’s comment on this theory is eminently to 
the point :' 

“Ist es méglich flacher und unbegriindlicher zu risonniren ? 
Der ganze Vorgang der im Stiicke geschildert wird, hat mit 
dem Friedensgesuche von Sphakteria doch auch nicht die min- 
deste Aehnlichkeit : und ich zweifle sehr, dass doch irgend ein 
Athener solche Anspielung wiirde verstanden haben.” 

Roscher? believes that the play was composed in 432 B. C., 
at the time when the envoys of Corcyra and Corinth were in 
Athens urging their respective causes. He compares with the 
action of the play the account of the alliance with Corcyra 
given in the first book of Thucydides and sees in the Heraclidee 
persecuted by their kinsfolk the Corcyrzans persecuted by their 
mother-city Corinth. He finds in the fact that the Pelopon- 
nesian states sided with Corinth a likeness between the situa- 


tion of Corinth, destitute of Peloponnesian allies, and the 
Heraclide, 


πάσης δὲ χώρας Ἑλλάδος τητώμενοι (v. 31). 


He sees in Copreus, the herald of Eurystheus, the Corinthian 
ambassadors, and he believes that the Corinthians threatened, 
while the Corcyrzans appealed chiefly to the independence and 
honor of Athens. 

But the attitude of the Corcyreans as seen in their speech 
given in Thue. I, 32 ff. is by no means that of “ Schutzfle- 
hende”. They offer an alliance the solid advantages of which 
they do not scruple fully to set forth’: 

καὶ σκέψασθε tis εὐπραξία σπανιωτέρα ἢ τίς τοῖς πολεμίοις 
λυπηροτέρα εἰ ἣν ὑμεῖς ἂν πρὸ πολλῶν χρημάτων καὶ χάριτος 
ἐτιμήσασθε δύναμιν ὑμῖν προσγενέσθαι αὕτη πάρεστιν αὐτεπάγ- 


1 Roscher, op. cit., p. 554. 


* Roscher, W., op. cit., Ueber die Auffiihrungszeit der Her. 
*Thuc. I, 32, Cf. schol., ἡ τοῦ Κερκυραίου Onunyopia μᾶλλον τὸ συμφέρον 
προβάλλεται ἢ τὸ δίκαιον. 





20 


γέλτος ἄνευ κινδύνων καὶ προσέτι φέρουσα εἰς μὲν τοὺς πολλοὺς 
ἀρετήν, οἷς δὲ ἐπαμυνεῖτε χάριν, ὑμῖν δὲ αὐτοῖς ἰσχύν. 

Compare the tone of the whole passage. 

Considering the spirit here shown, it would seem to have re- 
quired quite as much mental agility on the part of the Athen- 
ians to see Corcyreans in the Heraclide as to see in them the 
Lacedzemonians of Zirndorfer’s theory. Moreover in the speech 
of the Corinthians as reported by Thucydides there is quite 


as much of appeal to Athenian honor, as in that of the Corcy- 
reans, who indeed, as the scholiast remarks, base their argument 
chiefly on the advantage to be gained by alliance with them. 
Roscher thinks that the appearance of the suppliant Hera- 
clide on the stage must have been most effective in the pres- 
ence of the Corcyrean ambassadors ; but, considering the atti- 
tude of both embassies, it must have been difficult for the audi- 
ence to decide just which side the Heraclide symbolized, and 
their renowned ὀξύτης must have had special demands made on 
it, if, as Roscher will have it, the clue to the significance of the 
Heraclide is given in line 84 by the assertion of Iolaus, 


ov νησιώτην, ὦ ξένοι, τρίβω βίον, 


“denn die Inselbewohner lagen jedermann im Sinne”. This 
‘‘lucus a non lucendo” sort of information could have been 
clear to the audience, it would seem, only if we assume that 
Euripides’s allusions were always to be taken in a Pickwick- 
ian sense. MRoscher has not succeeded in showing the analogy 
between the condition of the Heraclide and that of the 


Corcyreans. 

Firnhaber’ puts the play in 432-1, before the outbreak of 
the war. His opinion is: ‘ Euripides igitur Heraclidas excog- 
itavit, composuit, docuit postquam ultimi legati Peloponne- 
siorum Athenis commorati Spartam redierunt, scripsitque ea 
mente ut summi Periclis, cuius dum vivebat partes sequebatur, 


1 Firnhaber, De tempore quo Heraclide et composuisise et docuisse Eurip- 
ides videatur, Wiesbaden, 1846. 


21 


consilia qu essent 6 re publica persuaderet, quam iniusta pos- 
tularent Lacedszmonii ingrati ostenderet, quecumque et populo 
et magistratibus molienda iam essent doceret, et feliciter Athenas 
ex instanti bello exituras esse prediceret.” He believes the 
prophecy at the end of the play to be not a prophecy ex eventu, 
but a true prophecy based on an earlier invasion of Attica. 
He also finds certain resemblances between the expressions of 
the play and those used by Pericles in the speech recorded by 
Thucydides in I, 140-144, and believes that Euripides had 
the desire to remind the Athenians of the words of Pericles. 
And further: “ Euripides id quod Pericles non fecerat nec facere 
potuerat ut de se ipse tuendo in illa oratione loqueretur in se 
quodam modo recepit, et ita perfecit ut neque respublica a se 
civis animum neque Pericles amicum desideraret.” 

In representing Euripides as the friend and advocate of 
Pericles he is not consistent and assigns to the poet the difficult 
role of essaying to strengthen Pericles with the people and at 
the same time castigating him for the faults of his private life. 

He says in reference to verses 299-301, 


ds δὲ νικηθεὶς πόθῳ 
κακῶς ἐκοίνωνησεν οὐκ ἐπαινέσω 
/ ” ¢ 9. = iol “ 
τέκνοις ὄνειδος οὕνεχ᾽ ἡδονῆς λιπεῖν, 


“non infitior si qui sunt qui poetam isto versu, τέκνοις ὄνειδος 
οὕνεχ᾽ ἡδονῆς λιπεῖν, ipsum Periclem paulisper tetigisse credant 
quasi tempus iam esset deponendi amoris nec civi nec seni nec 
temporibus convenientis bellique omnibus viribus curandi.” 

The likenesses which he points out between the Heraclide and 
the speech of Pericles are merely verbal and accidental: for 
example, he compares Heraclide 84, 


ov νησιώτην, ὦ ξένοι, τρίβω βίον, 


with Thucydides I, 143.5 εἰ γὰρ ἦμεν νησιῶται, τίνες ἂν ἀλη- 
πτότεροι ἦσαν : 





99 
I eed 


Firnhaber’s tendency to catch at a single word is illustrated 
by the fact that he finds the original of the parodying line in 
the Knights of Aristophanes (214), 


τάραττε καὶ χόρδευ᾽ ὅμως τὰ πράγματα, 
in line 109 of the Heraclide, 
καλὸν δέ γ᾽ ἔξω πραγμάτων ἔχειν πόδα. 


With regard to his contention that the prophecy at the end 
is not ex eventu, but a real prophecy, it may be granted that 
such a prophecy is a priori perfectly possible. But it is evident 
from the whole play that Athens is no longer the ἀπόρθητος 
χώρα of the Medea. The description of the invasion is real- 
istic and bears out the details of the first invasion. Moreover 
the prophecy would have more dramatic value if based on 
recent events than if it rested merely on a surmise. Potthast 
follows Firnhaber in his conception of the play. In fact he 
transcribes Firnhaber’s opinion literally and accepts it. Firn- 
haber has not succeeded in proving the relations which he 
assumes to have existed between Pericles and Euripides 
from the evidence before us in this play, and he has also failed 
to establish his dating, 432 B. C., on any other grounds. 

Theis urges the same point of view in defense of the date 
430 as Firnhaber for 432, namely :} 

“ut Periclem purget et ostendat suo iure bellum suasisse 
dignumque fuisse maiorum gloria quod Athenienses bellum 


susceperint — et respicit poeta Periclem ac statum rei publicse 
dicens (Her. 415-19) 


καὶ νῦν πικρὰς ἂν συστάσεις ἂν εἰσίδοις 
A \ , e / Φ f 
τῶν μὲν λεγόντων ws δίκαιον ἣν ξένοις 
ἱκέταις ἀρήγειν, τῶν δὲ μωρίαν ἐμὴν 
κατηγορούντων" εἰ δὲ μὴ δράσω τάδε 
οἰκεῖος ἤδη πόλεμος ἐξαρτύεται. 
‘Theis, J.. De Eur. Her., Monasterii, 1868. 


23 


Ut in fabula Demophon Iolao miseram suam conditionem 
explicat, ita ante spectatorum oculos proponitur Periclis causa’’. 

Grote’ makes the same comparison between Thucydides, 
II, 21, 3, κατὰ ξυστάσεις τε γιγνόμενοι ἐν πολλῇ ἔριδι ἦσαν 
οἱ μὲν κελεύοντες ἐξιέναι, οἱ δέ τινες οὐκ ἐῶντες, and the verses 
quoted above. 

Theis as well as Firnhaber has put a double-edged weapon 
into the hand of Euripides, for he understands that in verses 
423 ff., “‘ Euripides Periclem vituperare videtur”. He believes 
that here Euripides wishes to rebuke Pericles, because, accord- 
ing to Thue. II, 22, he allowed no assemblies to be held. This 
he says Thucydides, with his aristocratic political sentiments, 
seems to approve of. According to Theis Euripides, ‘ potes- 
tatis popularis amicus ”’, criticises this as unworthy of Athens 
and itsruler. But ἐὰν ἄδηλον σάλπιγξ φωνὴν δῷ, τίς παρασ- 
κευάσεται εἰς πόλεμον; The position of Pericles before the 
people would hardly be strengthened by a play, which, accord- 
ing to the interpretation of Firnhaber and Theis, now praised 
him and now joined with his enemies in bitter attacks on his 
morals or his policy. 

In his further argument Theis well compares the narrative 
of Thucydides II, 10, 12, 18, with Heraclidse 276-279, 


μύριοι δέ με 
μένουσιν ἀσπιστῆρες Εὐρυσθεὺς δ᾽ ἄναξ 
αὐτὸς στρατηγῶν" ᾿Αλκάθου δ᾽ én’ ἐσχάτοις 
καραδοκῶν τἀνθένδε τέρμασι μένει, 


and with Heraclide 393-397, 


πεδία μὲν οὖν γῆς εἰς τάδ᾽ οὐκ ἐφῆκέ πω 
στρατόν, λεπαίαν δ᾽ ὀφρύην καθήμενος 
σκοπεῖ, δόκησιν δὴ τόδ᾽ ἂν λέγοιμί σοι, 
ποίᾳ προσάξει στρατόπεδον τ᾽ ἄνευ δορὸς 
ἐν ἀσφαλεῖ τε τῆσδ᾽ ἱδρύσεται χθονός. 


1Grote, History of Greece, VI, p. 132, foot-note. 





24 


Of these passages he says, “facile credas accommodatam esse 
hane descriptionem ad veram Lacedemoniorum irruptionem : 
quare inde etiam conicias haud multo post bellum exortum 
scriptam esse fabulam”. He further makes very probable con- 
jectures in referring to v. 257, 


σὺ δ᾽ ἐξόριξε, nar’ ἐκεῖθεν ἄξομεν, 


to τὸ ἀπὸ Ταινάρου ἄγος related in Thuc. I, 128, and in see- 
ing an allusion to the affair at Plate in 431 B.C. and the 
Athenian message in verse 966, 


> isd > “ > a 3 / 
οὐχ ov tiv av γε ζῶνθ᾽ ἕλωσιν ἐν μάχῃ. 


He makes the point with regard to the prophecy of verses 
1032-36 that it would have been a dangerous matter to make 
a prophecy of this sort before the event, which could so easily 
have belied the poet’s words. He goes on to point out that the 
oracle could not have been invented by Euripides in the sad years 
that followed, with the plague, the consequent social degenera- 
tion, the accusation against Pericles, and his death. This, he says, 
would have been no time for a joyful prophecy. Finally he 
refers to the sparing of the Tetrapolis by the Spartans as related 
by Diodorus Siculus (XII, 45) and by the scholiast on Oedipus 
Coloneus, v. 701, and argues that because of this action on the 
part of the Spartans Euripides invented the oracle. He con- 
cludes: “ Huic vero fictioni nullum tempus magis oppor- 
tunum esse potuit quam Ol. 87, 2”. 

The next to discuss the subject is Professor von Wilamowitz- 
Moellendorf in his Analecta Euripidea. He says:' “ At 
certius eam definit vaticinium Eurysthei 1027 sqq. inrupturos 
esse olim Heraclidas i. e. Spartanos in Atticam: et invaserunt 
431, 430, 428, 427, 425. si ultra Pallenen prodire voluissent, 
fore, ut vincerentur. at anno 427 omnes Attic partes, etiam 
quibus antea pepercerunt, impune devastarunt. pepercerant 
autem, ceteris vastatis anno 430, (Thuc. II. 57) tetrapoli Diodor. 


1Op. cit. p. 152. 





25 


XII. 45. 1. itaque post 430 ante 427 (estatem) Heraclide 
docta est: nam certissima lex est, vaticiniorum ea que rata fuerint 
post eventum data esse, ea que data essent fefellisse. hee, 
satis obvia profecto, nemodum palam protulisse videtur.” 

This argument is accepted by Decharme as absolutely deci- 
sive for the date of the play.' But it is only by dint of 
misquoting Euripides and misapplying Diodorus that Wilamo- 
witz has arrived at this “obvious” conclusion. In the lines 
1030ff., 


θανόντα yap με θάψαθ᾽ οὗ τὸ μόρσιμον 
δίας πάροιθε παρθένου Παλληνίδος, 
καὶ σοὶ μὲν εὔνους καὶ πόλει σωτήριος 
μέτοικος αἰεὶ κείσομαι κατὰ χθονός, 
τοῖς τῶνδε δ᾽ ἐγγόνοισι πολεμιώτατος 
ὅταν μόλωσι δεῦρο σὺν πολλῇ χερί, 


there is only the prophecy that the Spartans shall one day 
invade Attica and find a bitter enemy in Eurystheus, who will 
be anally of the Athenians. Nothing is said of a defeat of the 
Spartans in case they advance beyond Pallene, although Wila- 
mowitz puts this in his text in such wise as to imply that it is 
contained in the prophecy. 

The account given by Diodorus (XII, 45) is this: pera 
Πελοποννησίων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων συμμάχων ἐνέβαλον εἰς τὴν 
᾿Αττικὴν τὸ δεύτερον. ἐπιπορευόμενοι δὲ τὴν χώραν ἐδενδροτόμουν 
καὶ τὰς ἐπαύλεις ἐνεπύριζον καὶ πᾶσαν σχεδὸν τὴν γῆν ἐλυμή- 
ναντὸ πλὴν τῆς καλουμένης Τετραπόλεως: ταύτης δ᾽ ἀπέσχετο 
διὰ τὸ τοὺς προγόνους ἐνταῦθα κατῳκηκέναι καὶ τὸν Εὐρυσθέα 


“ ’ 7 4 Ne 
νενικηκέναι THY ὁρμὴν ἐκ ταύτης ποιησαμένους" δίκαιον γὰρ 
a - ‘ A 2 / \ 
ἡγοῦντο τοῖς εὐηργετηκόσι TOs προγόνους παρὰ τῶν ἐκγόνων TAS 


προσηκούσας εὐεργεσίας ἀπολαμβάνειν. 

So the scholiast on Soph. CEd. Col., 701: Λακεδαιμόνιοι 
THY λοιπὴν γῆν δῃοῦντες τῆς μὲν Τετραπόλεως ἀπέσχοντο διὰ 
τοὺς Ἡρακλείδας. 

* Decharme, Euripide et l’esprit de son théatre, 1893, p. 195. 





20 

Here as elsewhere, with the exception of the play of Euripides, 
there is no mention of any mythical alliance between Eurystheus 
and the Athenians. On the other hand it is evident that the 
Athenians regarded their hostility to him and their victory 
over him as a reason for Spartan gratitude toward them. Cf. 
Herodotus, IX, 27, and Isocrates, Panegyricus, 56-60. 

The scruples which led the Spartans to spare the places where 
their ancestors had been befriended would be intelligible to all 
the Greeks, and Herodotus in his ninth book,’ which he wrote 
in the early years of the Peloponnesian war,’ recounts similar 
proceedings with regard to Decelea, because of Decelean aid 
afforded the Tyndaride at the time of the rape of Helen by 
Theseus. And before the first Spartan invasion, Pericles, fearing 
that prejudice might be aroused against him by a sparing of his 
lands by his friend king Archidamus, explained the situation in 
the assembly and presented his lands and buildings to the state.° 

It is not reasonable to suppose that Euripides would offer in 
explanation of the Lacedemonian sparing of special places, the 
motive for which was clear to all and rested on a κοινὸς 
Ἑλλήνων νόμος, the vengeance of the dead Eurystheus, so sud- 
denly converted to an Athenian alliance. Another symbolism 
is to be sought here. 

An argument brought forward by Hoeveler,‘ and Schmidt ° 
against Wilamowitz’s theory is a strong one: ‘“ Exiguam pro- 
fecto civibus suis Atheniensibus Eurystheus gratiam habuis- 
set, si toti Tetrapoli ab hostibus parci voluisset, reliquam autem 
Atticam impune devastandam iis permisisset.”° Eurystheus 
promises that he will be πολεμιώτατος to the Spartans.’ This 


1 Adt., ΙΧ, 73. 

2 Kirchhoff, Ueber die Entstehungszeit des herodotischen Geschichtwerkes, 
Berlin, 1872. 

*Thuc., 11, 18, 

* Hoeveler, J., De Heraclidis Euripidis, Monasterii, 1878, p. 48. 

5 Schmidt, W., Qua ratione Eur. res sua etate adhibuerit in Her., Halis 
Saxonum, 188], p. 34. 

6 Hoeveler, cited also by Schmidt. 

7 Her., v. 1034. 


27 


promise, if referred, as it is by Wilamowitz, to the campaign 
down to 427, was most ineffectually fulfilled. Eurystheus was 
then content to protect his own tomb and its immediate sur- 
roundings —a selfish policy. The Athenians had the right, 
from his promise, to expect better things of him. For in 
the second invasion, to which Wilamowitz refers this promise 
ex eventu, the whole country was ravaged by the Spartans 
(except the Tetrapolis, according to Diodorus), and they re- 
mained about forty days, which was the longest stay they made 
before the fortifying of Decelea. The distress caused by this 
campaign was the greatest of any, for even the campaign of 
427, the terminus ad quem of Wilamowitz’s dating, in which 
the Spartans were no longer withheld from ravaging by relig- 
ious scruples, is said by Thucydides to have been χαλεπωτάτη 
τοῖς ᾿Αθηναίοις μετὰ τὴν δευτέραν." 

Wilamowitz’s reasoning, then, is not sound. He has read 
into the oracle the part of the prophecy on which his argument 
turns and has assigned too special an interpretation to the gen- 
eral terms in which Eurystheus expresses himself. He has 
laid too much stress on the sparing of certain places, which in 
the general devastation and horror of the war would have 
counted for little with the Athenians. Such an oracle as 
Wilamowitz takes this to be would surely have seemed trivial 
and absurd to the Athenians in the years between 430 and 497. 
It is precisely in those years that such an oracle could not have 
been invented. 

One more discussion of the date of the play remains to be 
considered, that of Hoeveler.? He agrees with Theis in placing 
the composition of the play between the first invasion of the 
Spartans in 431 and the second in 430. His argument turns 
on the applicability of the prophecy of Eurystheus to the first 
Spartan invasion and its inapplicability to the second. He sees 
in the fruitless attack on Oenoe, in the fact that the Spartans did 


1Thuc., ITI, 26. 
* Hoeveler, De Heraclidis Euripidis, 1878. 








28 


not venture to descend to the plain, and in the not greatly dis- 
astrous cavalry skirmish, a fulfilment of Eurystheus’s promise. 
He argues that such a cheerful oracle could not have been in- 
vented in the time of which Thucydides writes τοιούτῳ μὲν 
πάθει οἱ ᾿Αθηναῖοι περιπεσόντες ἐπιέζοντο, ἀνθρώπων τε ἔνδον 
θνῃσκόντων και γῆς ἔξω δῃουμένης.. He holds, then, that the 
play was brought before the public either at the Lenwa or at 
the Great Dionysiac festival in the year 430 B.C. 

I concur with Theis and Hoeveler in the belief that the play 
can be definitely dated in the year 431-430, after the first in- 
vasion of the Spartans in 431 and before the second invasion 
in 430. I cannot, however, agree with them in their main 
arguments. Theis follows in the steps of Firnhaber in forcing 
allusions to Pericles, which at least cannot be proved and are 
often inconsistent, while both Theis and Hoeveler have, with 
all the other critics, attached too much weight in my opinion 
to the importance of the prophecy at the end as a factor 
in determining the date. I find that the following points in 
the arguments of Theis and Hoeveler are strong: the com- 
parison made by Theis between the details of the first Spartan 
invasion and those of the Argive invasion in the Heraclide, and 
the point made by Hoeveler that the promise of help from 
Eurystheus was not appropriate in the wretched years 430-427. 

Besides this the play appears to me to reflect to a remarkable 
degree what we know from other sources of the first year of the 
Peloponnesian war. I do not believe that it is at all possible to 
write a key to the Heraclide by which all the characters and 
situations may be elucidated as having definite references. But 
I hold that, in ageneral way, one may see mirrored to a strik- 
ing degree in this play the Athenian feeling and Athenian 
conditions in the time just following the first Spartan invasion. 
The play is, no less than the Suppliants, an ἐγκώμιον ᾿Αθηνῶν. 
Its tone is not that which suits a city that had suffered what 
Athens suffered in the years after 430. The awful plague, re- 

'Thuce., 11., 54. 


29 


flected so powerfully in the Oedipus Tyrannus,’ the universal 
misery and corruption that ensued, the death of Pericles to 
which such touching reference is made at the end of the Hip- 
polytus — none of these tragic events finds an echo in the heroics 
of the Heraclide. It is a political play written in the first 
year of the war, before the horrors of the war had been realized, 
and so it does not bear the impress of that bitter thirst for 
revenge and keen anguish for losses suffered that give the Sup- 
pliants and even the Andromache, “ Gelegenheitsstiicke ” 
though they are, a deeper pathos and a more lasting worth. 
The ἦθος of the play is defiance and self-assertion on the 
part of Athens. 
The motives of the play are contained in such lines as 


(1) φθείρου' τὸ σὸν γὰρ “Apryos οὐ δέδοικ᾽ ἐγώ, 
ἐνθένδε δ᾽ οὐκ ἔμελλες αἰσχύνας ἐμὲ 
ἄξειν βίᾳ τούσδ᾽, οὐ γὰρ ᾿Αργείων πόλιν 
ὑπήκοον τήνδ᾽ ἀλλ᾽ ἐλευθέραν ἔχω. 


(2) ἀεί ποθ᾽ ἥδε γαῖα τοῖς ἀμηχάνοις 
σὺν τῷ δικαίῳ Βούλεται προσωφελεῖν. 
τοιγὰρ πόνους δὴ μυρίους ὑπὲρ φίλων 
ἤνεγκε καὶ νῦν τόνδ᾽ ἀγῶν᾽ ὁρῶ πέλας" 
(9) νικωμένη γὰρ Παλλὰς οὐκ ἀνέξεται." 


The tone is that of a people stung to anger, who have not as 
yet received any overwhelming reverse, who have a boundless 
pride in their city and take the position of protectors of the 
oppressed and helpless. There are plenty of passages in the 
second book of Thucydides to indicate that these were the feel- 
ings prevailing in Athens in the first year of the war, notably 
passages in the Funeral Oration. 

I am very far from feeling with Firnhaber that Euripides 


10. T., vv. 150-215. 
3 Heracl. vv. 284 ff. 

5 Heracl., vv. 329 ff. 
* Heracl., v. 352. 








90 


was the dramatic mouth-piece of Pericles, and I find of no 
moment the parallels which Firnhaber draws between the first 
speech of Pericles and the Heraclide. A far greater similarity 
exists between the Funeral Oration and the Heraclide, both in 
tone and phrase, and I think it by no means beyond the range 
of probability that the speaker who alone of the speakers of his 
day τὸ κέντρον ἐγκατέλιπε τοῖς ἀκροωμένοις, whose marvellous 
speech delivered on the threshold of the war remains to-day 
the classic of such speeches, should have inspired by his elo- 
quence to such an effort as that made in the Heraclide the poet 
in whose work eloquent speeches play so large a part. It does 
not seem altogether fanciful to think that the speech of Pericles 
lingered, perhaps unconsciously, in the memory of Euripides, 
and that it is here and there reproduced — quam longo inter- 
vallo ! —in the Heraclide. 

The ἐλευθερία of Athens is one of the recurring notes in the 
Heraclide. Cf. lines 113, 198, 287. This is also among the 
earliest motives of the Funeral Oration. Cf. τὴν yap χώραν 
ἀεὶ οἱ αὐτοὶ οἰκοῦντες διαδοχῇ τῶν ἐπιγιγνομένων μέχρι τοῦδε 
ἐλευθέραν δι’ ἀρετὴν παρέδοσαν... . καὶ τὴν πόλιν τοῖς πᾶσι 
παρεσκευάσαμεν καὶ ἐς πόλεμον καὶ ἐς εἰρήνην αὐταρκεστάτην." 
Add also II, 43, 4 τὸ ἐλεύθερον κ. τ. Χ. Again the Athen- 
ian democracy is described in the speech of Pericles: καὶ ὄνομα 
μὲν διὰ τὸ μὴ ἐς ὀλίγους ἀλλ᾽ ἐς πλείονας οἰκεῖν δημοκρατία 
κέκληται κ. τ. AL? 

In similar wise Demophon : 


> \ s/o oo ’ » 
οὐ γὰρ τυραννίδ᾽ ὥστε βαρβάρων ἔχω, 
ἀλλ᾽ ἢν δίκαια δρῶ, δίκαια πείσομαι .ὃ 


In the same chapter Pericles speaks of the laws which are 
ordained for the protection of the innocent, especially the un- 


1 Thuc., II, 36. 
2Thuc., 11, 37. 
3 Heracl., vv. 424 ff. 


31 


written laws, ὅσοι τε ἐπ᾿ ὠφελίᾳ τῶν ἀδικουμένων κεῖνται Kal 
ὅσοι ἄγραφοι ὄντες αἰσχύνην ὁμολογουμένην φέρουσι. To these 
unwritten laws, the κοινοὶ “Ελλήνων νόμοι, there is frequent 
appeal in the Heraclide; 6. g., v. 131, τὰ δ᾽ ἔργα βαρβάρου 
χερὸς τάδε: vv. 236-245; v. 254; v. 1010, τοῖσιν Ἑλλήνων 
νόμοις ; vv. 961, 964, 966, et pass. 

Again in commemorating the fallen, Pericles says: καὶ ἐν 
αὐτῷ τὸ ἀμύνεσθαι καὶ παθεῖν μᾶλλον ἡγησάμενοι ἢ TO ἐνδόντες 
σῴζεσθαι, τὸ μὲν αἰσχρὸν τοῦ λόγου ἔφυγον, τὸ ἔργον τῷ σώματι 
ὑπέμειναν. 


This is comparable to lines 199 ff. of the Heraclide : 


ἀλλ᾽ oid’ ἐγώ, τὸ τῶνδε λῆμα Kal φύσιν 
θνήσκειν θελήσουσ᾽- ἡ γὰρ αἰσχύνη πάρος 
τοῦ ζῆν παρ᾽ ἐσθλοῖς ἀνδράσιν νομίζεται. 


Immediately thereafter stands, 


πόλιν μὲν ἀρκεῖ: Kal yap οὖν ἐπίφθονον 


λίαν ἐπαινεῖν ἐστι. 


The same thought occurs in the prologue of the funeral speech 
ΠῚ, 35, 2: μέχρι yap τοῦδε ἀνεκτοὶ of ἔπαινοί εἰσι περὶ ἑτέρων 
λεγόμενοι ἐς ὅσον ἂν καὶ αὐτὸς ἕκαστος οἴηται ἱκανὸς εἶναι δρᾶσαί 
τι ὧν ἤκουσε: τῷ δ᾽ ὑπερβάλλοντι αὐτῶν φρονοῦντες ἤδη καὶ 
ἀπιστοῦσιν. 

The boast of Pericles in II, 40, 4, οὐ γὰρ πάσχοντες εὖ, 
ἀλλὰ δρῶντες κτώμεθα τοὺς φίλους... Kal μόνοι οὐ τοῦ ξυμφέ- 
βροντος μᾶλλον λογισμῷ ἢ τῆς ἐλευθερίας τῷ πιστῷ ἀδεῶς τινα 
ὠφελοῦμεν, is the course scoffed at by the Argive herald in lines 
176 ff., 

μηδ᾽ ὅπερ φιλεῖτε δρᾶν, 
πάθῃς σὺ τοῦτο, τοὺς ἀμείνονας παρὸν 
φίλους ἑλέσθαι, τοὺς κακίονας λάβης, 


and praised by the chorus in lines 329 ff. 


ἀεί ποθ᾽ ἥδε γαῖα τοῖς ἀμηχάνοις κ. τ. dr. 








The sentiment of II, 43, 6: 


ἀλγεινοτέρα yap ἀνδρί ye φρόνημα ἔχοντι ἡ μετὰ τοῦ μαλακι- 
σθῆναι κάκωσις ἢ ὁ μετὰ ῥώμης καὶ κοινῆς ἐλπίδος ἅμα γιγνόμενος 
ἀναίσθητοςθάνατος, 
has much in common with Macaria’s speech in lines 500 ff. 
Again the thought is the same in II, 45, 2: 
καὶ ἧς aver’ ἐλάχιστον ἀρετῆς πέρι ἢ ψόγου ἐν τοῖς ἄρσεσι κλέος 


7 and in Heraclide, lines 476-77 : 


γυναικὶ yap συγή τε Kal TO σωφρονεῖν 
κάλλιστον, εἴσω θ᾽ ἥσυχον μένειν δόμων." 


The resemblance in this last generalization and. other resem- 
blances in word and thought that could be pointed out are in 
all probability accidental, but the fact that the exaltation of 
the virtues of Athens and the sweetness of death in her service 
are the leading themes of both speech and play seems to me to 
indicate that they were composed in the same year, though not 
necessarily with any conscious or unconscious connection. This 


is, of course, assuming, what I believe to be the fact, that 
Thucydides reports to us the substance of what Pericles actually 
said on this occasion. I believe that it is clear from both the 
speech and the play that they were composed at a time when 
patriotism was most conscious of itself, and before the strain of 
the war had been felt to any such exhausting degree as that 
which is evident in the next recorded speech of Pericles and in 
the Suppliants and the Andromache of Euripides. 

I have already noticed the comparison which Theis so well 
makes between the details of the first Spartan invasion as 
described by Thucydides and the Argive invasion in the 
Heraclide. It might be added that lines 385 ff, 


ὁ γὰρ στρατηγὸς εὐτυχὴς τὰ πρόσθεν ὧν K. τ. X., 


might very well have brought King Archidamus to mind. 
1Cf. Aesch. Septem., 232. 


33 


Another occurrence of these years seems to me to be reflected 
in this play — the opening act in the drama of the war.! The 
Thebans had treacherously seized Plates, the Plateans stand- 
ing by the Athenian alliance had resisted them and finally 
made prisoners of the invaders, whom they killed, contrary to 
agreement, after the main body of the Theban army had with- 
drawn from Platean territory and the Plateans had got their 
property in from the country. The Plateans sent the news of 
their victory to Athens, whence the message came to spare the 
Theban prisoners. This was, of course, too late. Then an 
Athenian army came to Platex, got in the harvest for them, 
and conveyed to Athens the helpless among the Plateans, old 
men, women and children. 

In his note on Thue. IT, 40, 4, od yap πάσχοντες εὖ, ἀλλὰ 
δρῶντες κτώμεθα τούς φίλους, Classen says: “ Beispiele zu der 
von Pericles hier gerithmten Politik Athens wird nicht so leicht 
sein aufzuweisen . . . Vielleicht mochte Kerkyra, Platiia, Leon- 
tini, Egesta vorschweben ; doch ist nicht zu verkennen, dass 
die hier bezeichnete Gesinnung mehr in Perikles’ Auffassung, 
als in der realen Ausfihrung begriindet war.” This idealized 
conception of her political motives was characteristically Athen- 
ian, as it is characteristically English to-day. (Cf. Beck on 
lines 828-9: “a couplet which gives noble and epigrammatic 
expression to a principle of action which our own country has 
boasted to be her traditional aim ”’.) 

In the case of Plateee there seems to have been a genuine 
interest and affection on the part of the Athenians toward the 
little, friendly city which had given itself to them (519 B. 
C.: Thue. ITI, 68, 510, Grote, Busolt) in the last years of the 
sixth century. And Athens had already done something for 
them: καὶ πόνους ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν of ᾿Αθηναῖοι συχνοὺς ἤδη 
avapaipéato.* 

It is a pretty tale in Herodotus VI, 111, that ever after the 


1 Thue. IT, 1 ff. 
?Hadt. VI, 108. 





94 


battle of Marathon, where the Platzeans stood with their little 
army beside the Athenians, at all sacred Athenian festivals the 
Athenian herald prayed that the Plateans might be blest as well 
as the Athenians. And after the destruction of their city in 
427 the Platsans received in many respects the rights of 
Athenian citizens (Lys. XXIII) and were afterwards allotted 
Scione (Thue. V, 32). They fought in the Athenian army in 
the great Syracusan struggle also. It seems to me natural, 
and in fact inevitable, that the Platean ἀμήχανοι in their midst 
should be brought to the mind of the Athenians by such lines as 


ἀεί ποθ᾽ ἥδε γαῖα τοῖς ἀμηχάνοις κ. τ. λ. 


and many other lines referring to protection of the weak and 
helpless. Here was something tangible at which the Athenians 
could point. Here were helpless ones who had actually found 
a shelter and defense in Athens. 

I do not go so far as to maintain that Iolaus represents the 
helpless old men from Platz ; Alemena and Macaria, the 
women, and the rest of the Heraclide, the children ; though I 
think they would fill the roles quite as effectively as would 
Spartans after Sphacteria or Corcyrean ambassadors in the 
year 432. My argument is that while no one definite interpre- 
tation of the suppliant Heraclids can be given that will fit his- 
torical and dramatic details exactly, yet the most tangible in- 
stance of Athenian generosity and hospitality to which Athens 
could point was there within her walls, at the time at which this 
play was brought out, in the representatives of the little state 
which Athens, for whatever motive, had often befriended and 
sincerely liked. Truly the thought of these homeless Plateans 
must have come to the minds of those who listened to 


ὦ παῖδες ἐς μὲν πεῖραν ἤλθομεν φίλων, 
” 9 a » ae ’ > ; ‘on 
nv δ᾽ ovv ποθ᾽ ὑμῖν νόστος és πάτραν φανῇ 


1 Heracl. vv. 329 ff, 


30 


Kal δώματ᾽ οἰκήσητε καὶ τιμὰς πατρός, 
σωτῆρας ἀεὶ καὶ φίλους νομίζετε 

καὶ μήποτ᾽ ἐς γῆν ἐχθρὸν αἴρεσθαι δόρυ, 
μεμνημένοι τῶνδ᾽, ἀλλὰ φιλτάτην πόλιν 
πασῶν νομίζετ᾽. ἄξιοί γ᾽ ὑμῖν σέβειν 

οἱ γῆν τοσήνδε καὶ Πελασγικὸν λεὼν 
ἡμῶν ὑπηλλάξαντο πολεμίους ἔχειν 
πτωχοὺς ἀλήτας εἰσορῶντες.} 


I do not find this reference to the Platean refugees sug- 
gested in any of the discussions of the play. Theis? does refer 
lines 961 and 966 to the murder of the captive Thebans by 
the Platezans as well as to the monstrous deeds of Athenians 
and Spartans related in Thuc. II, 67. I believe that the refer- 
ence is rather to the act of the Platezans and the fruitless mes- 
sage of clemency sent from Athens. The parallel seems to me 
an exact one. As the Plateans in their rage repaid treachery 
by treachery and murdered their Theban foes, who had wronged 
them so bitterly, so Alemena, kinswoman of the Heraclide, 
breaks the unwritten laws of Hellas, in murdering their enemy, 
Eurystheus, who has persecuted her and hers. But Athens, 
the protector of Plateans and Heraclide has clean hands in 
both affairs. This I take to be the poet’s meaning. 

There remains the prophecy of Eurystheus, the point of 
which has generally been found in the supposed reference to 
the sparing in the Spartan raids of places where ancestors of 
the Spartans had been befriended. I have already given my 
reasons for regarding this reference as inadequate. My own 
conception of its significance is this. The prophecy is, of 
course, ex eventu. The whole play shows that Attica has been 
invaded. I think that the oracle plainly has two motives: 
one, to prophesy ex eventu the outbreak of the Peloponnesian 
war and the invasion of Attica by the ungrateful Spartan 
descendants of the Heraclide ; the second, to show a dramatic 


1 Heracl. vv. 309 ff. 
? Theis, op. cit. p. 28. 





36 


change of heart toward Argos. At the end of the play polit- 
ical motives come quite undisguisedly to the fore. The 
future hostility of descendants of the Heraclide is foretold and 
so the Argive king is suddenly converted into an Athenian 
ally. In the early years of the Peloponnesian war Argos almost 
alone of the Peloponnesian states refused to stand against Ath- 
ens, and later in the war she was her ally.’ This, in my opin- 
ion, is the burden of the oracle, a foretelling of Spartan enmity 
and Argive friendliness in the Peioponnesian war. 

Euripides has, then, used this old myth of the Heraclide 
and their kindly reception in Athens to emphasize the enlight- 
ened and civilized position of Athens in that policy of helping 
the weak, to the utilitarian side of which expression is given 
by Alcibiades in the speech delivered in reply to Nicias in the 
final discussion of the Syracusan expedition:! τήν te ἀρχὴν 
οὕτως ἐκτησάμεθα Kal ὑμεῖς Kal ὅσοι δὴ ἄλλοι ἦρξαν, παραγιγνό- 
μενοι προθύμως τοῖς ἀεὶ ἢ βαρβάροις ἢ “EXAnow ἐπικαλουμένοις. 

To point this motive of Euripides’s play there was an ex- 
ample for the Athenians in the presence of men, women, and 
children from Plate, which in the city would vivify many a 
reference in the play to the homeless and defenceless and to the 
duty of protecting such. 

I hold, therefore, that Euripides wrote his Heraclide in the 
first year of the Peloponnesian war, after the affair at Plates, 
to which I see undoubted reference in the play, after the first 
invasion of the Spartans under Archidamus, which is repro- 
duced in the Argive invasion in the Heraclide, and probably 
after the funeral oration pronounced by Pericles in the winter 
of 431. The play is most truly a “ Gelegenheitsstiick”. 

In the discussion of the date of the Heraclide the argument 
turns chiefly on the interpretation of the political character and 
allusions of the play, in which point even those who agree sub- 
stantially or entirely in the dating of the play are led to their 
conclusions by different and often opposing inferences. 


1 Thue. II, 9. 
2Thuc. VI., 18, 2. 


37 


It should be noted, however, that those who, like Boeckh, 
put the play in the second decade of the Peloponnesian war 
entirely ignore the changes in Euripides’s technique, whether 
we call them development or degeneration, which can be 
traced with absolute certainty in the extant plays. To quote 
Wilamowitz’s statement of the case :* “eine anzahl von dramen 
des Euripides weisen sich durch einen gemeinsamen altertiim- 
licheren und strengeren stil als verwandt aus ; es sind Alkestis, 
Medeia Hippolytos Andromache Herakleiden. 516 fallen alle 
teils nach urkundlichen angaben, teils nach sicheren geschicht- 
lichen anspielungen vor 425”. Although, in my opinion, the 
Andromache is to be taken from this group and placed in the 
second decade of the war, there can be no doubt about the older 
fashioned and austerer style in language and metre of the other 
four mentioned here by Wilamowitz. 

The comparative shortness of the play as it stands cannot be 
urged, it may be said, because of the probable fact that there 
was originally after line 629 a κομμός, which is now wanting. ” 
But even with the addition of a proportionate κομμός, besides a 
messenger’s narrative, the play would still stand with the older 
dramas in this regard. In the matter of resolutions in the 
iambic trimeter it is on a level with the Alcestis, the Medea, 
and the Hippolytus. Cf. Rumpel: “ Noch viel weniger (i. e., 
auflésungen) haben Heracliden, Medea, Alcestis, und Hippolyt, 
welche mit einer auflésung auf 163 trimeter den beschluss 


macht ”’.° 


The choral metres are simple and but little varied. The 
dactylic theme prevails. In the construction of the lyric parts 
there are none of the later innovations. Monodies and duets 
do not appear at all. The κομμός, the construction of which is 
often an indication of date, is lost from this play. In language 
sense is not yet dominated by sound. The cases of ἐπίζευξις 


1 Heracles, 1895, I, p. 143. 
Hermann, cf. Matthie, VIII, p. 257. Kirchhoff, Her., v. 629. 
3Rumpel, Philol., 28, 1866. 





38 


are therefore rare, as in the earlier extant plays of Sophocles 
(except the Ajax). There are, indeed, but two instances of it, 
if one omit interjections, of the repetition of which there are 
also two instances. Neither of the examples (lines 48 and 449) 
occurs in a lyrical part, as is the rule in the later plays. Of 
course it must be said that the κομμός, if extant, would doubt- 
less add to the number of repetitions, but it is of significance 
that there is no case of it in the songs preserved. Of the rel- 
evancy of the choral songs to the situation, Arnoldt says: ‘ Die 
Stasima, welche der Chor singt, sind simmtlich ganz wohl im Ein- 
klange mit der jeweiligen Situation erfunden und ausgefihrt ”’.! 
The metrical and stylistic tests applied to the Heraclide bear 
out the conclusions of the interpretation of the political aspect 
of the play. 

It is the opinion of Wilamowitz not only that the play as it 
has reached us is in a mutilated state, but that this mutilation 
was intentional, the work of a reviser of the fourth century, 
who cut up the παλαιὰ τραγῳδία for the practical needs of his 
theatrical troupe. As this theory does not in its working out 
attempt to do away with any of the portions of importance for 
the dating, unlike the similar attempt of Rassow with regard to 
the Hecuba, the discussion of it is not germane to the subject in 
hand. I mention the theory only to express my entire dissent 
from the conclusions reached by it.? 


THE HIppo.tytTus 


The date of the Hippolytus is fixed by the argument : 
ἐδιδάχθη ἐπὶ ᾿Επαμείνονος ἄρχοντος ὀλυμπιάδι mh’ ἔτει δ΄. 
πρῶτος Εὐριπίδης, δεύτερος ᾿Ιοφῶν, τρίτος Ἴων. 

The closing words of the play are a fine reference to the loss 
of Pericles, whose death occurred shortly before the appearance 
of the play. The lines call to mind Thucydides’s statement that 


1 Arnoldt, R., Die chorische Technik des Eur., Halle, 1878. 
? Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hermes 17, pp. 345 ff. 


39 


Pericles was still more highly appreciated in Athens after his 
death than during his life.' 


ὦ κλείν᾽ ᾿Αθηνῶν Παλλάδος θ᾽ ὁρίσματα, 
οἵου στερήσεσθ᾽ ἀνδρός. ὦ τλήμων ἐγώ. 


κοινὸν τόδ᾽ ἄχος πᾶσι πολίταις 
ἦλθεν ἀέλπτως" 

πολλῶν δακρύων ἔσται πίτυλος" 
τῶν γὰρ μεγάλων ἀξιοπενθεῖς 
φῆμαι μᾶλλον κατέχουσιν. 


The technique of the play is of the strict type of the Medea, 
yet there are some indications of the tendencies which became 
so marked in the later plays. The resolved feet in the tri- 
meter are few in spite of the metrical quantity of the name 
Hippolytus, the “ Hauptperson”’.* In the responsions of syl- 
lables in the stasima, however, there is a trace of the laxness 
that prevailed with Euripides later. Cf. Masqueray, Théorie 
des formes lyriques de la tragédie grecque, Paris, 1895, p. 
96: “Il faut, comme il est juste, tenir compte de |’ ordre 
chronologique de ses pieces. L/’Alceste et la Médée, en effet, 
sont versifiées avec beaucoup de soin, et je n’ai trouvé dans leur 
Stasima aucune de ces incorrections. [Γ᾿ Hippolyte en contient 
déji une que tout le monde admet : 


f A 
οὐκέτι yap καθαρὰν φρέν᾽ ἔχω τὰ παρ᾽ ἐλπίδα λεύσσων. .. 
A b / ς 
οὐκέτι συζυγίαν πώλων ᾿Ενετᾶν émiBace .. . 


Stas. ITI, B. Β΄. 1120-1131”. 
Again* “Le premier Solo libre se lit aujourd’hui dans 


’Hippolyte”. Moreover the epodes which are found in the 
majority of his later tragedies appear in the Hippolytus first 
1Thuc., 11, 65, 5. 


2vy. 1457 fff. 
3 Rumpel, op. cit.; cf. Wilamowitz, Herakles, 11, p. 144, note. 


* Masqueray, op. cit., p. 269. 





40 


of Kuripides’s extant tragedies.’ On the other hand the κομμοί 
are of the regular symmetric type (Masqueray, pp. 167-8), and 
there is no notable expansion of the lyrical parts. In contrast 
with the late dramas the songs of the chorus are well motived by 
the situation, and the chorus has a close interest in all that goes 
on on the stage.’ 

There are many more repetitions of single words in the play 
than are found in the Medea and the Heraclide. Excluding 
repeated interjections, of which there are a dozen or more cases, 
I find ten instances of ἐπίζευξις, and these chiefly in lyric pas- 
sages as in the later dramas. 

The style of the play agrees well with its date. It is the 
last of the oldest group of extant dramas and yet contains in- 
dications of the characteristics and mannerisms which mark the 
plays of the next dozen years and, in a heightened and exag- 
gerated degree, those of the last ten years of Euripides’s life. 


THE HECUBA 


To judge from the extant dramas, the Hecuba marks a turn- 
ing-point in the technique of Euripides. Although it is one of 
the earlier plays and preserves a degree of strictness in the 
iambic trimeter, nevertheless most of the exaggerations cari- 
catured by Aristophanes in the well-known passage in the F rogs 
are seen in some measure in this play. Aristophanes seized 
upon the play early for ridicule. The lines in the Clouds 717 ff., 


φροῦδα τὰ χρήματα, φρούδη χροιά, 
φρούδη ψυχή, φρούδη δ᾽ éuBas, 
καὶ πρὸς τούτοις ἔτι τοῖσι κακοῖς 
φρουρὰς ἄδων 
ὀλίγου φροῦδος γεγένημαι, 

point to Hecuba, 161 ff.’ 


φροῦδος πρέσβυς, φροῦδοι παῖδες 


‘Decharme, Euripide et |’ esprit de son théatre, Paris, 1893, p. 476. 
? Arnoldt, op. cit., pp. 59-60. 
°Cf. however Fraccaroli, pp. 34-35. 











and Hecuba, 171 ff., 
ὦ τέκνον, ὦ παῖ 
δυστανοτάτος ματέρος, ἔξελθ᾽ ἔξελθ᾽ 
οἴκων ---- ἄιε ματέρος αὐδάν, 


is echoed in the Clouds, 116 ff., 


cal / ᾽ / 
ὦ τέκνον, ὦ παῖ, ἔξελθ᾽ οἴκων, 


lal / 
ἄιε σοῦ πατρός. 


The Clouds was produced in 423 B.C. This is then the 
terminus ante quem for the Hecuba. 

Some scholars place it immediately before the Clouds, that 
is in the year 424 B. C.'. A contemporary reference, however, 
which is tolerably certain, would put it back perhaps to 425. 
It is inferred that the reference to Delos, 458 ff., 


ἔνθα πρωτόγονός τε φοῖνιξ 
δάφνα θ᾽ ἱεροὺς ἀνέσχε 
πτόρθους Λατοῖ φίλᾳ, 
ὠδῖνος ἄγαλμα Δίας, 


was suggested by the recent purification of Delos and the estab- 
lishing of the Delian games, related by Thucydides, ITT, 104. 
This took place in 426 B.C. It is not, of course, absolutely 
necessary that the play should have been written in the year 
immediately following the purification of Delos, though this is 
not lacking in probability. In any case the date 425 has met 
with pretty general acceptance. 

Rassow ” has endeavored to show that the Hecuba as we now 
have it is an “ Ueberarbeitung,” and that the passage which 
refers to Delos in the first stasimon is the work of the reviser. 
As the untenability of this position has been clearly demon- 
strated by Maass in answer to Rassow,’ I will not take up Ras- 
sow’s discussion, but only give two striking examples of his 
method. He sees the reviser in the following passage : 

1 Weil, H., Sept tragédies d’ Euripide. 


2 Rassow, Hermes, XXII, 1887. 
3 Maass, E., Hermes, XXIV, 1889. 





42 


TA. ποῦ τὴν ἄνασσαν δή ποτ᾽ οὖσαν Ἰλίου, 
᾿Ἑκάβην, ἂν ἐξεύροιμι, Τρῴαδες κόραι ; 

ΧΟ. αὕτη πέλας σου vat’ ἔχουσ᾽ ἐπὶ χθονί, 
Ταλθύβιε, κεῖται ξυγκεκλῃμένη πέπλοις. 

ΤΑ. ὦ Ζεῦ, τί λέξω ; πότερα σ᾽ ἀνθρώπους ὁρᾶν 
ἢ δόξαν ἄλλως τήνδε κεκτῆσθαι μάτην, 
τύχην δὲ πάντα τὰν βροτοῖς ἐπισκοπεῖν: 


> σῶν wv ~ ᾿ὕ - 
οὐχ ἥδ᾽ ἄνασσα τῶν πολυχρύσων Φρυγῶν, 


οὐχ ἥδε Πριάμου τοῦ μέγ᾽ ὀλβίου δάμαρ:" 


Of lines 492-3 Rassow says: “ Diese erstaunte Frage [sic] 
kann Talthybios unméglich thun, nachdem er unmittelbar 
vorher von dem Chor darauf aufmerksam gemacht worden ist, 
dass die neben ihm liegende Person Hecuba sei”. It would 
seem almost intentional perversity instead of lack of imagina- 
tion that could reason thus. “Rhetorical questions”’, familiar 
to the proverbial school-boy, would seem to be unknown to the 
discoverer of the revision of this part of the Hecuba. 

Rassow also finds that the first stasimon, ll. 444 ff., 


»¥ \ Μ) 
αὔρα, TOVTLAS αὔρα κ. τ. X., 


must be ascribed to the reviser, because it is illogical that the 
Trojan women should here ask in song whither in the Greek 
lands fate was going to bring them, seeing that they had already 
been distributed among the Greek chiefs. The natural answer 
to this, given by Maass, is that one can very well imagine the 
Trojan women to be still in ignorance of the details of their 
fate, even though the lots have been drawn. In any case the 
song is dramatically in keeping with their situation, and one 
could, if forced to it, pardon Euripides a slight ἄλογον here 
rather than deny him the writing of this beautiful lyric. 

It is in the stasimon, of course, that the reference to Delos 
comes which is generally accepted as an indication of the date 
of the play. 


1 Hecuba, vy. 484 ff. 





43 


In the passage in the Frogs to which I have frequently 
referred AXschylus sings a lyric designed to show τὸν τῶν 
μονῳδιῶν τρόπον in the dramas of Euripides. The monody is full 
of Euripidean epithets, and of his characteristic epizeuxis, and 
is a mélange of metres, such as is found increasingly in the later 
work of Euripides. The extant tragedies of Euripides without 
monodies are the Medea, the Heraclide, the Heracles, the 
Helen, the Iphigenia among the Taurians, and the Bacche. 
Monodies do not appear for the first time in the Hecuba, but 
in that drama there are two, whereas the preceding plays, the 
Alcestis, the Medea, the Heraclide, and the Hippolytus, have 
but one each, and the Medea and the Heraclide none. Fur- 
thermore in the construction of the monody a notable innova- 
tion is evident in the Hecuba. Though the early monodies of 
Euripides are antistrophic, neither of the two monodies in the 
Hecuba responds strophically. 

The lyric expansion so evident in Euripides is also seen in 
his ἀμοιβαῖα----ἰο use Masqueray’s term' for the alternation of 
song or of song and speech on the part of the actors. In Euri- 
pides’s earliest extant dramas such songs occur only in the 


Alcestis, which from its “satyric” 


nature is not in all points 
typical for the early tragedy. AXschylus has but one example 
of these songs, and Sophocles but two. These are antistrophic. 
That in the Hecuba, lines 154-215, is entirely lyrical and irre- 
gular in its responsion. 

In the κομμός likewise the Hecuba marks a departure. ‘Le 
thréne lyrique lui-méme, sorte de dialogue chanté A toutes les 
époques par la scéne et l’orchestre, commence dés 425 ἃ briser le 
moule étroit dans lequel il avait été jusque-la renfermé. C’est ἃ 
partir de cette date que le genre libre, aprés quelques essais de 
conciliation, commence ἃ prendre décidément le pas sur son 
prédécesseur.” 2 

In the “alleostrophic” type the κομμός in the Hecuba 


1 Masqueray, op. cit., p. 220. 
Masqueray, op. cit., p. 218. 





tt 


comes first in point of time. The others of this sort are found 
in the Suppliants, the Heracles, the Ion, the Troades, the 
Tauric Iphigenia, the Phcenisse, and the Bacchants.' “Or, 
dans le genre libre, la construction épirrhématique se rencontre 
pour la premiére fois en 425 ou 424, avec |’Heécube, et les 
thranes entigrement chantés apparaissent quelques années plus 
tard, dans |’ Héraelés, et surtout ἃ partir de 412.” 

The repetitions which become so plentiful in the late plays 
and are employed to absurdity in the monody of the Phrygian 
in the Orestes begin to be abundant in the Hecuba. There are 
sixteen cases. These repetitions, as Masqueray points out,” are 
an indication of the predominance of music over poetry, and he 
well says that they are no more necessary to the sense than the 
repeated εἰειειει-λίσσουσα of lines 1348 and 1314 of the Frogs. 
As has already been noted, the earlier dramas of Euripides 
show relatively few instances besides interjections. The 
Alcestis has ten, the Medea six, the Heraclide two, and 
the Hippolytus ten. The number in the Alcestis is ex- 
plained by the nature of that play —“‘ σατυρικώτερον, ὅτι εἰς 
χαρὰν καὶ ἡδονὴν καταστρέφει παρὰ τὸ τραγικόν". In the 
Heraclide both instances occur in the iambic trimeter and have 
consequently nothing to do with the musical composition. The 
same is true of five out of the six cases in the Medea. In the 
Hippolytus begins that free use of repetitions in the lyric portion 
with the responsion of the repeated words, as in lines 526: 
Ἔρως, Epes, 535: ἄλλως, ἄλλως, which is carried to such a hys- 
terical point in the Phrygian scene in the Orestes. Of the six- 
teen cases in the Hecuba two occur in the iambic trimeter 


line 689, 
/ , \ \ ’ 
ἄπιστ᾽ ἄπιστα καινὰ καινὰ δέρκομαι. 


In the matter of relevancy the choruses in the Hecuba stand 
between those of the severer early type and the later ones. 


1]bid., p. 214. 
2Op. cit., p. 267. 


45 


The songs, though well-motived, correspond only to the general 
situation, and the chorus has been criticised by Hermann’ and 
others for lamenting its own fate rather than showing sym- 
pathy with the sufferings of the heroine. This shows the be- 
ginning of that detachment of the chorus from the interest of 
the actors which reaches its height in such plays as the Vielen 
and the Pheenisse. 


In most of the points of metre and style here discussed the 
Hippolytus is distinctly of the type of the Medea and the Hera- 
clide. The Hecuba shows divergences enough from this type 


to give color to the assumption that it was composed a few 
years later than the Hippolytus. The parodies of Aristo- 
phanes already cited sufficiently establish 424 as the latest pos- 
sible date for the Hecuba. It is, therefore, unnecessary to 
dwell on the fact that the Andromache (418-17) owes much to 
the Hecuba, and that echoes of it are found in lyric passages of 
the Troades (415) and the Helen (412). It is of interest to 
note how the chorus of Thessalian women in the Andromache, 
after the altercation between Andromache and Helen, burst into 
an entirely unmotived song about the judgment of Paris and 
the fall of Troy at verse 274 —a song which is an expansion of 
the choral song of the captive Trojan woman (vv. 639 ff. of 
the Hecuba) there, entirely appropriate to the condition of 
that chorus. 

Among other passages the chorus in the Troades, beginning 
with line 511, and Helen’s lament in the Helen, lines 239 ff., owe 
much to the choruses cited above from the Hecuba. 

The dependence of various passages in the Andromache on 
the Hecuba, though it does not affect the absolute date of the 
latter, is of importance in view of the ancient theory, which 
still finds eminent defenders, that the Andromache was com- 
posed in the early years of the Peloponnesian war and so ante- 
dates the Hecuba. This point will be taken up again in the 
discussion of the date of the Andromache. 


1 Preefatio ad Hec., p. xvi. 





40 


The result of the present consideration of the date of the 
Hecuba is to confirm the usually accepted dating 425-424, 
which is established by the parodies of Aristophanes in the 
Wlouds, by the reference to Delos in line 462 taken in connec- 
tion. with Thue. III, 104, and by the position the Hecuba 
holds in its technique, having points of contact with the older 
dramas and showing the later tendencies in metre and style. 


THE SUPPLIANTS 

A terminus post quem for the Suppliants is not far to seek. 
One of the most notable occurrences of the early Peloponnesian 
war was the refusal of the Beotians to surrender the dead sol- 
diers of Athens after the battle of Delium, 424 B. C.!. That 
Euripides should have written in the early years of the war an 
ἐγκώμιον ᾿Αθηνῶν, the plot of which turned on the refusal of a 
king of Thebes to surrender the fallen Argives for burial, and 
that this play should have preceded the action of the Beeotians 
after Delium, is beyond the bounds of likelihood. With refer- 
ence to this argument, as well as on other grounds, the several 
critics have united in dating the play after 424 B. C. 

Boeckh and Hermann assign the play to the year 420 B. C., 
at the time of the treaty made with Argos. Hermann believes 
that it may have been acted in the presence of the Argive am- 
bassadors. Wilamowitz hesitates between 422 and 421, in his 
latest expression of opinion? inclining toward the former year, 
“wo der Hass gegen den lebenden Kleon angemessen, der 
Schmerz tiber den Verlust von Delion noch frisch, die Mahnung 
wirklich von Bedeutung war”’.’ Of the date 420 he says : “ Die 
von Bockh und Hermann beliebte Datirung der Hiketiden auf 
420 ist aus vielen Griinden ganz undenkbar, und den Erechtheus, 
der von ihnen nicht wohl getrennt werden kann, erwahnt 
unsere uberlieferung schon 421”. Barnes and Markland see in 

1 Thue. IV, 93-96. 


*Euripides, Der Miitter Bittgang, Berlin, 1899, p. 26. 
* Herakles, Berlin, 1895, I, p. 134 note. 


47 


the play a note of reproach for Argos and place it in the year 
418-17, when the Argive oligarchy made a treaty with Sparta. 


Giles* finds that Hermann’s date for the play is strongly sup- 


ported by the characterizations of the fallen chiefs, in whom 
he discerns Nicias, Lamachus, Demosthenes, Alcibiades, Laches, 
all of whom had sworn to the treaty of Nicias in the preceding 
year,” and who were “ indisputably the best known personages 
among the Athenian deputies who were present on the occasion”, 

The play is as markedly as were the Heraclide and the 
Andromache a “ Gelegenheitstiick”’, and the political views of 
Euripides find expression in it. The two later plays are 
variously interpreted to show that Euripides was an adherent 
of Nicias, of Cleon, or of Alcibiades, so that he is regarded as 
belonging to all the three parties which he designates in the 
well-known lines in the Suppliants, 238 ff., 


τρεῖς yap πολιτῶν μερίδες κ. τ. Xr. 


Wilamowitz holds that in this play Argos is treated with 
“ausgesuchter Nichtachtung”, and that, far from demanding 
a treaty with Argos, Athens only puts an obligation on that 
city to refrain from invading Attica and to help her in case 
Athenian territory is invaded. He believes that Euripides is 
here advocating peace with Sparta and is on the side of Nicias. 

Bergk* holds that Euripides was of an excitable nature, 
blown to and fro with every wind of political doctrine, so that 
he could be an advocate of Cleon, and was so inthe Andromache 
in 423-2 (according to Bergk’s conception of the play), and 
could also the next year write the choral song that made so 
largely for peace, as Plutarch relates : ἢ 


κείσθω δόρυ μοι μίτον ἀμφιπλέκειν ἀράχναις, 
μετὰ δ᾽ ἡσυχίας πολιῷ γήρᾳ συνοικοίην' 
Giles, P., Classical Review, 1890, pp. 95 ff. 
?Thuc. V, 19. 


*Bergk, Hermes, 18, Die Auffiihrungszeit der Andromache. 
*Nauck, Fragm. (1889), 969. 





48 


ἀείδοιμι δὲ στεφάνοις κάρα πολιὸν στεφανώσας, 
Θρηίκιον πέλταν πρὸς ᾿Αθάνας 

περικίοσιν ἀγκρεμάσας θαλάμοις, 

δέλτων T ἀναπτύσσοιμι γῆρυν 


ἃν σοφοὶ κλέονται. 


In view of our defective knowledge of political conditions 
and the attitude of parties, not to speak of individuals, at the 
time of the discussion of the peace with Sparta finally made in 
421 B. C., it is wise not to infer too much about the political 
idiosyncrasies of Euripides. Doubtless he was not absolutely 
consistent —if that be consistency —to the extent of never 
changing his opinions, but it is clear that he had political prin- 
ciples to which he gave his consistent and passionate adherence. 
Minutiz of his changes or constancy cannot be discovered by 
the allegorizing method of Firnhaber or by the remarkable 
combinations of Bergk ;' but the following general conclusions 
stand firm: Euripides loved Athens and hated Sparta; he 
preferred peace to war, but honor to cowardice. In his earliest 
extant political drama, the Heraclide, his chorus sings, 


ae δ \ ? δι ἃ A 2 
εἰρήνα μὲν ἐμοί γ᾽ ἀρέσκει, 


and in the Andromache, filled as it is with the bitterest invec- 
tive against Sparta, there is no advocacy of war, though the 
keenest resentment and hatred of Spartan success and Spartan 
baseness are expressed. The beauty of peace is the theme of 
the ode which survives from the Cresphontes : ὃ 


εἰρήνα βαθύπλουτε καὶ 

καλλίστα μακάρων θεῶν, 

ζῆλος μοι σέθεν ὡς χρονίζεις, 

δέδοικα δὲ μὴ πρὶν πόνοις 

ὑπερβάλῃ με γῆρας, 

πρὶν σὰν χαρίεσσαν προσιδεῖν ὥραν 
1Cf. Wilamowitz, Herakles, I, p. 143. 


2 Heraclide, v. 371. 
3 Nauck, Grec. Fragm., Eur., 453. 


49 


\ 
Kal καλλιχόρους ἀοιδάς, 
\ 9 » \ 
τὰν δ᾽ ἐχθρὰν στάσιν εἷργ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ol- 
\ 
κων τὰν μαινομέναν τ᾽ ἔριν 


~ / , 
θηκτῷ τερπομέναν σιδάρῳ. 


Bergk seems right in assigning this play to the period just 
before the peace of Nicias, when, as Thucydides says,’ Spartans 
and Athenians alike desired peace. The tone is the same as in 
Aristophanes’s Peace. Cf. vv. 974 ff. of that play : 


> , ΄ 
ὦ σεμνοτάτη βασίλεια θεά 
πότνι᾽ Eipnyn, 


- 
δέσποινα χορῶν, δέσποινα γάμων. 


Wilamowitz’s theory that the Cresphontes was brought out 
with the Heraclide is untenable; for the latter play must be 
put in the first year of the war, and the words of this song 
imply a long waiting for peace. 

In this play, too, there is certainly high commendation of 
peace. Cf. vv. 484 ff. 


εἰ δ᾽ ἣν παρ᾽ dupa θάνατος ἐν ψήφου φορᾷ, 
οὐκ ἄν ποθ᾽ "Ελλὰς δοριμανὴς ἀπώλλυτο. 


ὅσῳ τε πολέμου κρεῖσσον εἰρήνη βροτοῖς, 
ἣ πρῶτα μὲν μούσαισι προσφιλεστάτη, 
γόοισι δ᾽ ἐχθρά, τέρπεται δ᾽ εὐπαιδίᾳ, 
χαίρει δὲ πλουτῳ κ. τ. dr? 


Peaceable settlement of disputes and compromise are praised 
by Adrastus in lines 739 ff., and general denunciation of war 
may be found passim. The fact remains, however, that the 
two motives of the play which sautent aux yeux are the Theban 
refusal to surrender the dead and the aid of and alliance with 


1Thuce. V, 14 ff. 
ΟΝ, Ar., Peace, vv. 520 ff. 








50 


Argos, whereas Sparta is brought in quite gratuitously for de- 
nunciation : 


/ \ ee ‘ ΄ / 1 
Σπάρτη μὲν ὠμὴ καὶ TETTOLKLATAL τρόπους. 


Here Sparta’s cruelty and crooked dealings are openly 
denounced, as in the later Andromache and often in the history 
of Thucydides. The Argive alliance was exclusively the affair 
of Alcibiades, as the fifth book of Thucydides abundantly testi- 
fies. He saw that Argos must attach herself to either Athens 
or Sparta, and that Sparta was ready to renounce Athens for 
such a profitable alliance, which would protect her at home, 
while she prosecuted war outside of the Peloponnesus.’ Nicias, 
the constant friend of Sparta, urged against a treaty with Argos 
without consultation with her and prevailed on the Athen- 
ians to send an embassy, on which he himself went, to beg 
the Spartans to deal fairly in accordance with the terms of the 
peace.* A play celebrating an Argive alliance and denouncing 
Sparta, as does the Suppliants, would not be written by a close 
adherent of Nicias. The fact that Euripides in all his political 
plays, and so in this play, praises peace does not in itself prove 
that his sympathies were with Nicias or that he approved of 
the terms of the Peace of Nicias, which carried with it active 
alliance with Sparta. What the terms of a “ Peace of Alci- 
biades ” would have been it is idle to guess, but Thucydides 
states that, besides the fact that he was piqued because of the 
Spartan slighting of his claims to negotiate the peace, Alcibiades 
had Argive leanings which led him in 420 to advocate that 
alliance with sincerity. 

Now it seems practically certain that Euripides was interested 
in Alcibiades in the beginning of his political career. Plutarch 
in his life of Alcibiades certainly attributes to Euripides the 
writing of the ode which celebrated the famous victories of 
Alcibiades at Olympia, which most probably occurred in the 


1V. 187. 
2Thuc. V, 36. 
’Thuce. V, 46. 


61 


year 420; and though in his life of Demosthenes Plutarch’s 
reference to the matter expresses some doubt about the author- 
ship of the ode, he nevertheless states that it is the common 
opinion that Euripides wrote it. This connection between the 
two men is usually regarded as an established fact. Of. 
Wilamowitz, Der Miitter Bittgang, p. 27: “Er hat sich in 
den niichsten Jahren dem Alkibiades genihert, der 420 zuerst 
hervortrat”. And there is certainly a resemblance which I have 
not seen noticed, but which, I think, must have been com- 
mented upon, since it seems striking, between the polity com- 
mended by Euripides in the Suppliants, lines 244—45, 


A A A ἃ» 
τριῶν δὲ μοιρῶν ἣν μέσῳ σῴζει πόλεις 
/ / e 
κόσμον φυλάσσουσ᾽ ὅντιν᾽ av τάξῃ πόλις, 


and the political creed set forth as his own by Alcibiades at 
Sparta, Thuc. VI, 89. He too is against of τύραννοι and also 
against the ὄχλος. Moreover he says: τῆς δὲ ὑπαρχούσης 
ἀκολασίας ἐπειρώμεθα μετριώτεροι ἐς τὰ πολιτικὰ εἶναι, ἡμεῖς δὲ τοῦ 
ξύμπαντος προέστημεν, δικαιοῦντες ἐν ᾧ σχήματι μεγίστη ἡ πόλις 
ἐτύγχανε καὶ ἐλευθερωτάτη οὖσα καὶ ὅπερ ἐδέξατό τις, τοῦτο 
ξυνδιασῴξζειν. Here the same constitutional views are expressed 
as in the Euripidean lines. 

Later plays of Euripides, such as the Andromache and the 
Pheenisse, suggest like political views to those of Alcibiades, 
or at least an interest in him. It seems, then, that the inter- 
pretation of the play which makes Euripides the adherent of 


_ Alcibiades rather than of Nicias is more in accord with other 


facts and indications. 

Wilamowitz! argues for 422 rather than 421, the date earlier 
advocated by him in his Analecta Euripidea, on the ground 
that in the former year the loss of the battle of Delium was 
still fresh in the minds of the Athenians. This argument is in 
itself good, but there were occurrences in the year 420, which 
would renew the bitterness over Delium, if it were flagging, 

* Wilamowitz, Der Miitter Bittgang, Ρ. 26. 





52 


and which brought Beotians and Argives together before the 
Athenian public. It is to this juxtaposition of Beeotia and Argos 
and the subsequent treaty with Argus that I attribute the play. 

The events in question are those recounted by Thucydides, 
V, 36, 37, 38, 40. Two of the Spartan ephors in the winter 
of 421 entered into negotiations with the Beotians' which cer- 
tainly bear out the charge, 


ἑλικτὰ κοὐδὲν ὑγιές, ἀλλὰ πᾶν πέριξ 


φρονοῦντες." 


Their suggestion was that the Beeotians, to escape the hated 
Athenian alliance, should enter the Argive alliance and then 
win over the Argives to the side of Sparta. The Spartans 
would break faith with Athens for the price of the Argive 
friendship, for which they had always longed, that they might 
with easy minds fight outside the Peloponnesus. These schemes 
were met half way by some Argive magistrates, but the accom- 
plishment failed by reason of some delay on the Beeotian side. 
During the same winter the Spartans, for the sake of getting 
Panactum for Athens and Pylus for themselves, concluded a sep- 
arate alliance with the Beeotians in defiance of the terms of the 
treaty with Athens. The Argives, in trouble over all this, fearing 
it meant a union of Athens, Sparta and Beeotia, felt that, unless 
they would be left isolated, they would do better to make alli- 
ance with Sparta. This accordingly they set about. The Spar- 
tan envoys arrived in Athens with the Athenian prisoners from 
Panactum, but with the unwelcome news of the demolition of 
the place and of their private alliance with Bceotia against the 
terms of the treaty. Here were ποικίλοι τρόποι which so aroused 
the Athenians’ anger that they dismissed the envoys with an un- 
gentle answer. Forthwith Alciabiades sent a message to his 
Argive friends that here was their opportunity, promising them 
his aid. The Argives did not hesitate to throw over the affair 


1Thuc. V, 36. 
2 Andromache, v. 447. 


99 


with Βωοίϊα and Sparta or fail to appreciate the advantages 
of an alliance with their old friend Athens, a democracy like 
themselves, possessing a navy which would be worth much to 
them in war. Their envoys hastened to Athens. Spartan en- 
voys came too, who failed of an honest hearing by the famous 
trickery of Alcibiades, of whom, however, it must be said that 
he was no more dishonest than his Spartan dupes. WNicias, in 
his zeal for peace and Sparta, went to Lacedemon to make 
Athenian demands. The Spartans refused to give up their pri- 
vate alliance with the Bootians, and the Athenians, smarting 
under a sense of injustice done them, made their treaty with 
Argos and her allies. The Peace of Nicias and the alliance of 
Athens with Sparta was not renounced by either side in conse- 
quence of this. This Beoto-Argive complication, and the in- 
dignation aroused by it in Athens, when its details became 
known, can easily have suggested the thought from which the 
Suppliants grew. 

I believe that the play, then, must be dated in 420, the date 
of Boeckh and Hermann, which Wilamowitz pronounces im- 
possible. The play must have been written, however, after 
the treaty with Argos was made. It would be a more dramatic 
conception to believe, with Hermann, that the play was per- 
formed in the presence of the Argive envoys, but that sup- 
position attributes to Euripides either a supernatural gift of 
foresight, or a miraculous speed of composition. The play is 
not one of hurried or slighted workmanship. 

Wilamowitz finds that Argos is treated with contempt 
throughout the play. This is far too strong a statement, 
though it cannot be denied that Theseus’s manner toward 
Adrastus is strongly “von oben herab”. But I take this to be 
only a bit of heroic manners and their different standards which 
allows the king of Athens to say to his suppliant guest, 

σῖγ᾽ "Αδραστ᾽, ἔχε στόμα 
καὶ μὴ ᾽πίπροσθε τῶν ἐμῶν τοῦς σοὺς λόγους! 
θῃς. 

νν. 514-515., 





o4 


But it is not improbable that Athens, choosing, as she did, 
between Spartan and Argive overtures, did assume in making 
the alliance the attitude of the conferrer of the favor. That was 
at least in all likelihood the sentiment in Athens, where a feel- 
ing of confidence and superiority had prevailed ever since the 
victory of Sphacteria. 

Wilamowitz notes that the compact at the end of the play 
demands nothing from Athens and lays on Argos all duty of 
assistance against foes. This, he says, is very different from 
the actual treaty of 420. But it must be observed that 
Athena’s appearance is quite idle, unless some significance is 
attached to her words. Theseus has already enjoined grate- 
ful remembrance upon the Argives, and Adrastus has promised 
it for them. There is no knot left for the deus ex machina to 
loose. Athena now appears, demanding that the Argives be 
not allowed to go without a solemn pledge to be allies of Athens 
in danger. A generation earlier AZschylus in his Eumenides! 
had commemorated, in a similar passage, an alliance of Athens 
and Argos. The passage in the Suppliants with all its details 
suggests inevitably a real treaty, and its terms correspond in 
part to the actual treaty preserved in Thuc. V, 47. That the 
treaty given by Euripides is one-sided is in accordance with 
the motive of the play, and as the play was written for an 
Athenian rather than an Argive audience, that emphasis was 
placed on Argive aid rather than on Athenian sacrifice would 
not displease the popular feeling. The reference to sacrificial 
victims seems to be a trait taken from the actual treaty. It 
happens that in this treaty alone among those preserved by 
Thucydides are victims mentioned. The prophecy of hostility 
between the Argive σκύμνοι λεόντων and the Thebans gains its 
point from the alliance of Argos and Athens, ever the foes of 
Beeotia, and the breaking off of all attempts at rapprochement 
between Argos and Beeotia. 

From the political tone of the drama, then, it is evident that 


1 Eumenides, γ. 765. 


55 


it was composed after Delium and before Mantinea. In this 
period I hold that the most probable date is the year 420-419, 
immediately after the Athenian treaty with Argos. The play 
cannot precede the Peace of Nicias, as Wilamowitz main- 
tains, and cannot be intended, as he conceives, to create feel- 
ing for the peace; for it emphasizes hatred towards Sparta 
and Beeotia, and one of its chief dramatic effects is a solemn 
and detailed treaty with Argos. Moreover its praises of peace 
are by no means inevitably praises of the Peace of Nicias or of 
peace and alliance with Sparta alone. No rupture of that 
treaty followed the Argive alliance as its direct and immediate 
consequence. 

Further, the play could not have been brought out, as Haigh 5 
states, “in the spring of 420, when the alliance with Argos 
was about to be concluded”, nor, as Hermann believes, at the 
time of the treaty in the presence of the ambassadors ; for this 
latter supposition implies a fore-knowledge of the outcome of 
the complicated and secret negotiations between Athens and 
Sparta and Argos which is improbable, or a hasty composition 
that is not warranted by the careful technique of the play. 

Giles * dates the play, as I have done, after the treaty with 
Argos. His argument, however, is one that should hardly 
meet with approbation. It turns on the identification of the 
Argive leaders with notable Athenians. Of some of the iden- 
tifications, it may be said, that, though based on exceedingly 
inadequate evidence, it is not absolutely beyond the bounds of 
reason that they should be right. But the manifest absurdity 
of making the beautiful youth Parthenopeus of Arcadia, a 
young Sir Galahad, whose heart is pure in spite of all tempta- 
tion, represent Alcibiades, 


‘“ Born to be nothing else than beautiful 
And brave, to eat, drink, love his life away’’, 


1See Decharme, op. cit., pp. 201 ff. 
2The Tragic Drama of the Greeks p. 296. ἡ 
3Giles, P., Political Allusions in the Suppliants of Euripides, Class. 


Rev. Vol. IV, p. 95. 





56 


has led even the ingenious inventor of this theory to suggest 
that in this portrayal Euripides is drawing Alcibiades not as he 
was, but as his country would have had him be. 

The Suppliants, while composed with great care, belongs in 
its metre and language unmistakably to the middle group of 
plays. The metre shows the growing freedom of the time in 
the more frequent resolutions in the trimeter, in which respect 
the play is freer than the Hecuba.! Some of the later lack of 
symmetry is seen in the κομμός in lines 1072-79. The monody, 
however, is of the earlier antistrophic type. “La forme libre, 
fluide, s’imposait done, et elle ne tardera guere ἃ apparaitre ; 
mais nous ne sommes encore qu’ au début d’un art nouveau. Si 
nous laissons de cdté le Rhésos, on sait que la date des Suppli- 
antes, jouées aprés l Andromaque [ste], doit étre placée vers 
420.” ? 

The figurative language of the play is rich and beautiful, 
even the prologue, which so often with Euripides is merely me- 
chanical and without beauty, containing a poetic touch (lines 
30-32). One peculiarly Euripidean figure, that of ἐπίζευξις, 
is conspicuously absent. I have noted only φέρω, φέρω (line 
1123), with the antistrophic παπαῖ, παπαῖ. This is a curious 
fact, when we consider that the play belongs to a group which 
is marked by the increasing use of this figure and that there 
are plenty of situations in the play where we might, after the 
analogy of the other plays, expect it. Other assonance figures, 
such as anaphora, polyptoton and alliteration, occur with nota- 
ble frequency in this play. 


THE DATE OF THE HERACLES. 


There have been few attempts to date the Heracles exactly,° 
though there is a general agreement that this drama belongs to 
the middle group of extant plays. Cf. von Wilamowitz- 

1 Rumpel, op. cit., p. 409. 


? Masqueray, op. cit., p. 274. 
*See Wilamowitz, Herakles, pp. 132-147. 


57 


Moellendorff, Herakles (Berlin, 1895), p. 135: “dass der 
Herakles zwischen Hiketiden und Troerinnen gedichtet ist, 
kann mit ziemlich starker zuversicht behauptet werden”. The 
personal note in the chorus on old age (lines 638-700) makes 
it evident that the poet was in his own feeling γέρων ἀοιδός 
when he wrote this play, and this would correspond to the 
limits suggested in the citation from Wilamowitz. 

The play contains indubitable political references to con- 
temporaneous events, but, with ourinsufficient knowledge of the 
times, none of these is intelligible enough to fix the date with 
any degree of certainty. The most evident of these references 
is contained in lines 588 ff. : 


πολλοὺς πένητας, ὀλβίους δὲ TO λόγῳ 
δοκοῦντας εἶναι, συμμάχους ἄναξ ἔχει, 

οἱ στάσιν ἔθηκαν καὶ διώλεσαν πόλιν 

ἐφ᾽ ἁρπαγαῖσι τῶν πέλας, τὰ δ᾽ ἐν δόμοις 
δαπάναισι φροῦδα, διαφυγόνθ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀργίας. 


These verses Hartung! referred to Theban politics at the time 
of the controversy over Delium. Wilamowitz expunges them, 
because of their utter lack of connection with the passage 
in which they are set, with the comment, “ verse, die mit dem 
drama inhaltlich nicht verbunden sind, sind auch an dem 
platze, wo sie iiberliefert’sind, nach beiden seiten unverbunden. 
das spricht fiir die unechtheit”. This procedure, however, is 
to be followed with caution ; for Euripides has the habit of in- 
troducing gratuitous political allusions. In any case the lines 
offer nothing useful for determining the date of the play, 
although they are evidently directed against political intrigues, 
most probably Athenian. 

Fix conjectured that the ψόγος τοξότου and ἔπαινος τοξότου 
between Lycus, vv. 159 ff., and Amphitryo vv. 188 ff., involved 
a contrast of Athenian and Spartan methods of fighting. This 


1 Hartung, Euripides Restitutus. 





58 


point is developed by Wilamowitz and applied to the success 
of the light infantry over the Spartan hoplites at Sphacteria and 
to the defeat suffered by Athens at Delium with no light 
infantry to protect the retreat. He adds that the verses in 
question were of a sort to call forth unbounded applause from 
the partisans of the brilliant Demosthenes, the forerunner of 
Iphicrates in the development of the light infantry. 

This very probable argument gives 424 B. C. as the earliest 
terminus post quem for the play, and the style and metre of the 
play are in favor of this. Rumpel’s investigation of the reso- 
lutions in the trimeter of Euripides places the Heracles after 
the Supplices and before the Troades. Masqueray, in his dis- 
cussion of the lyric forms of Greek tragedy, shows that the 
κομμοί of the Heracles exhibit those changes which appear in 
this part of the Greek tragedy from 425 B. C. “Si Von 
réfléchit au développement que suivit le Commos tragique jusque 
vers 425, on voit qu’il tend de plus en plus, sinon ἃ rejeter toute 
symétrie, du moins ἃ la dissimuler.”* In the asymmetric class 
of κομμοί here discussed by Masqueray are the κομμοί in the 
Hecuba, Heracles (lines 887 ff.), Ion, Suppliants, Troades, 
Iphigenia among the Taurians, and Bacchants. In these one 
person sings the lyric verses with no recitation. There are 
epirrhemata, generally by the corypheus. The strophes and 
epirrhemata are alike unequal. In this asymmetric class are 
also the entirely lyrical κομμοί of the Heracles (lines 1042- 
1085), Helen, Iphigenia in Aulis, and Bacchants. The earliest 
of these plays is the Hecuba, which by general consent is 
dated in 425 B.C. Moreover, those of the entirely lyrical 
asymmetric class, besides the Heracles, belong to the latest 
group of plays. From metrical considerations it is evident 
that 424 is none too late a terminus post quem. Another met- 
rical indication of relatively late composition are the trochaic 
tetrameters of lines 855-874.’ Six of the nine Euripidean 


1 Masqueray, op. cit., p. 203. 
2 Wilamowitz, Herakles, I, 145. 


59 


dramas in which this metre occurs are known to be of late 
date, and the presumption is strongly in favor of their all 
having been composed after 420. Wilamowitz further calls 
attention to the great extent to which the “enoplic”’, or mixed, 
dochmiacs are used in this play, otherwise found in the later 
plays, Andromache (though Wilamowitz counts this a member 
of the earliest group), Troades, Ion, Helen, Iphigenia among 
the Taurians, Phoenisse, Orestes, Bacchantes. 

In the treatment of the chorus this play shows the charac- 
teristics of the relatively early extant plays. As in the four 
earliest, Alcestis, Medea, Heraclide and Hippolytus, and the 
succeeding dramas, Hecuba and Suppliants, the chorus bears an 
intimate relation to the action, and its songs are on the whole 
adapted to the situation. 

The language and style are comparatively free from the man- 
nerisms which mark so strongly Euripides’s later work. Cf. 
Wilamowitz : “der sprache nach méchte man ihn trotz einer 
anzahl barocker wendungen den ilteren dramen anreihen. Das 
scheint sich zu wiedersprechen, aber alle einzelnen erscheinungen 
erkliren sich, sobald man nur anerkennt, dass der dichter sich 
mit diesem drama besonders viel miihe gegeben hat’’.' In 
the matter of repeated words the Heracles stands with the 
dramas of the middle group. Of these repetitions I note 
thirteen. 

Wilamowitz sees a change in the “ Weltanschauung” of 
Euripides between the Suppliants and the Heracles, because he 
says in the Suppliants, line 180, the poet must have joy in 
his heart in order to create anything that will give joy, and 
this is the direct opposite of the mood in which he composed 
the Heracles and all later dramas. The passage in the Suppli- 
ants is, however, of doubtful authenticity and is generally 
bracketed. Wilamowitz is inclined to make Alcibiades, ‘ dieser 
demonisch geniale Mann’”’, responsible for the embittering of 
Euripides and his work. 

1 Op. cit., p. 147 ἢ. 





00 


Dieterich, on the other hand, finds that the Heracles and the 
Suppliants are closely related and feels that they cannot be 
divided by the bitter experiences which have left their impres- 
sion on the later plays, notably the Trojan trilogy. In the 
Heracles Euripides still takes an active interest in politics. 
Dieterich suggests that the Heracles, the Suppliants, and the 
Erechtheus were given together. “ Theseus, der den Herakles 
aus Theben nach Athen fiihrt, dass er dort ganz genese, der die 
Leichen der Argiven von den gottlosen Thebanern erfordert, 
wie die Athener nach der Schlacht von Delion es gethan, am 
Schluss aus Géttermund die Mahnung an Athen und Argos sich 
zu verbiinden—in beiden Stiicken ganz dieselbe Animositit 
gegen Theben: Erechtheus, der den feindlichen Einfall sieg- 
reich zuriickweist, seines Kindes Blut hochherzig fiirs V ater- 
land hingibt — und darin das herrliche Friedenslied, das man in 
Athen auf allen Gassen sang — drei Stiicke, ein grosses ἐγκώμιον 
᾿Αθηνῶν im Jahre des Nikiasfriedens.” * 

Wilamowitz? dissents from such a close dating of the plays: 
“der gedanke, den Herakles selbst zwischen Erechtheus und 
Hiketiden zu riicken, hiitte nicht ausgesprochen werden sollen, 
ganz abgesehen von dem gegensatze der stimmung in beiden 
werken, denn selbst wenn man die beiden Theseus neben einan- 
der ertragen wollte: der kénig Kreon in den Hiketiden und 
der kénig Kreon im Herakles vertragen sich nicht’. 

Dieterich is wrong, in my opinion, in placing the Suppliants 
in the year of the peace of Nicias. ‘“ Dass sie 421 aufgefiihrt 
sind, ist wohl sicher”, he says; but his argument for the closer 
relation of the Supplices and the Heracles is, to my thinking, 
good, although I do not believe that they formed part of the same 
trilogy. Between the Suppliants and the Andromache came the 
battle of Mantinea with its rehabilitation of Spartan prestige 
and its depreciation of Athenian glory. The Andromache is 
stamped with the bitterness of defeat. The Hecuba and the Sup- 
pliants know a proud Athens that is a refuge for men in distress. 


1Op. cit., p. 42. 
2 Herakles, I, 134, Anm. 27. 





61 


My feeling is that the Dorian hero was celebrated by Euri- 
pides after the Peace of Nicias and before the battle of Mantinea. 
My termini would be 420 and 418. 

Hermann ' notes a general resemblance of composition between 
the Heracles and the Andromache. Andromache with her son, 
Molossus, victims of Hermione and Menelaus, correspond to 
Megara and her children, victims of Lycus. They are defended 
from harm in the one play by Peleus, in the other by Heracles. 
The defenders are in both cases stricken with misfortune, and 
the plays are ended in the one case by the intervention of Thetis 
as deus ex machina, in the other by that of Theseus. 

It is, of course, a priori possible that the Andromache was a 
“ fore-study ” for the greater Heracles ; but a comparison of the 
two plays leaves the impression that the great work ‘on which” 
Euripides “ expended so much toil and love, to which he gave 
life with his own heart’s blood ”’,? preceded in time the artificial 
Andromache, the political piece, with its lack of unity external 
and internal, contrasting with the deep meaning of the super- 
ficially ununified Heracles. This may be regarded asa purely 
subjective argument, but the point made by Dieterich is cer- 
tainly strong, that the Heracles is separated in feeling from the 
Euripidean dramas of 415 and later by its pride in the strength 
of Athens. ‘There is the same difference apparent between it 
and the bitter Andromache, written, as I hope to prove, after 
Mantinea. 

A discussion of the date of the Heracles of Euripides cannot 
ignore the relation between that play and the Trachinians of 
Sophocles, although, as the date of the latter play is unknown, 
a settlement of the question of priority between the two dramas 
could give no precise data for determining the time of compo- 
sition of the Heracles. 

The date of the Trachinians is still swb iudice, some critics 
putting it among the earliest extant plays of Sophocles, and 


1 Prefatio ad Supplices, 1837. 
2 Wilamowitz, Herakles I., p. 182. 





62 


others among his latest. Zielinski’ regards it as very probably 
the oldest extant Sophoclean play: “die Trachinierinnen sind 
vielleicht das alteste der uns erhaltenen Stiicke des Sophocles, 
sicher nicht viel jiinger als die Antigone”. Wilamowitz, on 
the other hand, believes that the Heracles of Euripides directly 
suggested to Sophocles the subject of the Trachinians. 

There are resemblances casual and superficial and also those 
which cannot be the result of chance between the Trachinians 
and the work of Euripides in several of his dramas. Some of 
these resemblances are weighed by Zielinski and decided ac- 
cording to various criteria. By these he determines that in each 
case Sophocles has been the original and Euripides the borrower. 
He thus maintains that the Trachinians preceded the Alcestis 
and the Medea. Professor Earle? has refuted his argument and 
has established the priority of the Alcestis and the Medea. He 
shows this notably for the Alcestis by pointing out the sources 
of Sophocles’s motive of the waiting, silent woman, Iole in 
Trach. 325 ff., δακρυρροεῖ δύστηνος κ. τ. Δ. It is to be found 
in the insignificant scene of the waiting handmaid, Ale. 136 
ff., where the verbal coincidences show that the verses were in 
Sophocles’s mind when he composed his own more ambitious 
scene, and the famous scene, Alc. 1200 ff., of the silent Alcestis. 
That there is a conflation of these two passages in the Sophoclean 
passage is beyond a doubt, when once the scenes have been 
compared. In the case of the Medea, also by a comparison 
of the various tragic motives of the Trachinians and the Medea, 
Professor Earle shows that “in writing the Trachinians 
Sophocles had the Medea before him, and that in the case of 
this play, too, he paid Euripides the compliment of imitation ”’. 

In Zielinski’s argument, “ der Arzt” Sophocles plays a large 
part, and he contrasts the realistic description of the effect of 
the poison in the Trachinians with the theatrical narration in 


1 Philologus, 1896. 
*Studies in Sophocles’s Trachinians, Trans. Am. Phil. Assoc., 33, pp. 1 
sqq. 


63 


the Medea. He admits, however, that it would be impossible 
to find any one cause that would produce all the varied symp- 
toms of the Sophoclean scene. He thinks that Sophocles’s 
vocabulary would show on examination a large number of tech- 
nical medical terms. It is my strong impression that the 
vocabulary of Euripides would be found to contain far more 
words of this nature than that of Sophocles. I have noted in 
reading a considerable number of terms which Euripides has in 
common with the medical writers, which do not appear in the 
other tragedians. Some of the notable instances of such expres- 
sions are Prey κοίλη, Ion, 1011 : Hippocrates, 344, 30 ; ἐρύθημα, 
Pheen., 1488 : Hippocr. Aph., 1260; ἑλκόω, Hecuba, 405 ; érx- 
ώδης, Hippol., 1359: Hippocr. Epid. ὃ, 1085; σφακελισμός, 
Frag. 751: Hippocr. Art. 799; Scholiast on Hippocr. ὁ δὲ 
Baxyeios ὀδύνην καὶ ἄλγημα καὶ φλεγμονὴν φησιν εἶναι Tov 
σφακελισμὸν, παραθέμενος Εὐριπίδου λέξεις ἐκ 'Τημένου. δυσθά- 
vatos Jon, 1051: Hippocrates, 71 Εἰ : σφρυγῶ, Androm., 196 ; 
Suppliants, 478 ; Hippocr., 618, 47; 684, 18. 

Zielinski finds that Andromache 222 ff. was borrowed from 
Trachinians 460—462 and 485. It is true that, at first sight, 
Andromache’s self-abasement might seem an artificial and gro- 
tesque exaggeration of Deianira’s words, but a comparison of the 
two dramas as wholes shows that it is the Trachinians that has 
borrowed from the Andromache rather than the reverse. 

The prologue of the Trachinians has a marked resemblance 
to that of the Andromache, more marked than to any other 
Euripidean prologue. This passage is strongly contested 
between those who affirm and those who deny the Euripidean 
influence. For example Haigh says: ‘“ The opening speech of 
Deianira, as was long since pointed out, is not a mere repro- 


duction of the Euripidean prologue: it is spoken in conversa- 
tion with the nurse instead of being addressed to the spectators, 
and the desultory narrative which it contains is natural and 


appropriate under the circumstances”'. See also Zielinski, 


1 Tragic Drama of the Greeks, p. 189; Cf. Patin, Sophocle, p. 66. 





θ4 


who, however’, considers the prologue not to be addressed to 
the nurse, but to be ἃ “ Spinnelied ”, like that of Gretchen in 
Faust, “Meine Ruh ist hin”. Compare on the other hand 
Croiset?: “ Au début, un prologue narratif fait songer ἃ la 
maniere d’Euripide et semble dénoter son influence ; ἃ la fin la 
monodie d’Héraclés accentue encore la ressemblance”. The 
prologue of the Andromache is typically Euripidean. No 
trace of any alien influence is apparent in it. The prologue of 
the Trachinians is prima facie strikingly un-Sophoclean. It is 
much longer than the introductory speeches of the extant 
dramas. It is not addressed to any one, as are all the other 
extant introductory speeches. It contains a narration of the 
speaker’s antecedents and a description of the preliminary plot 
entirely in the Euripidean manner. Yet it has beautiful So- 
phoclean touches that redeem it from the artificiality and theatri- 
cality of Euripides. Euripides, then, in the prologue of his 
Andromache shows no trace of Sophoclean manner. Sophocles 
in the prologue of the Trachinians shows traits acknowledged 
by all critics from Aristophanes down to be Euripidean. And 
the two prologues are similarly constructed. 

The prelude of the first few lines is not the same, but it 
leads up to the same statement of wretchedness. 

Trach., 5: ἔξοιδ᾽ ἔχουσα δυστυχῆ τε καὶ βαρύν. 

Androm., 6: νῦν, εἴτις ἄλλη, δυστυχεστάτη γυνή. 

The beginning of the narratives immediately following is 
cast in the same form. 

Trach., 6 : ἥτις πατρὸς μὲν. 

Androm., 8: ἥτις πόσιν μὲν. 

Then follows the recitation of the woes of the two women in 
their, for different reasons, unhappy unions, and the expres- 
sions of their fears. 

Trach., 37: ταρβήσας ἔχω. 

Androm., 42: deimatoupevn ἐγώ. 


1Philologus, 1896, pp. 521 ff. 
2 Croiset, III, 239. 


65 


Finally Neoptolemus and Heracles alike are absent, and 
their absence is fraught with terror for Andromache and 
Deianira. 

To the monologue of each a servant replies : 

Trach., 49 : δέσποινα Δῃάνειρα. 

Androm., 56: δέσποιν᾽.---- 

There is a certain likeness between the character of Deianira 
and that of Andromache; each is the type of the model wife as 
conceived by the poet of each. Deianira is a conception so 
much more beautiful than Andromache that the merit of origi- 
nality might seem to belong to Sophocles on this score. But 
Euripides has derived his Andromache from the Andromache 
of the Iliad, where she is the good and loving wife, as Helen is 
the faithless one, while there is nothing in the myth to indicate 
that Deianira was any other type than the jealous wife. That 
is far from being her character in Sophocles’s fine portrayal. 
Euripides’s Andromache is the noble conception of the Iliad 
ruined by the mawkish sentimentality, the rhetorical bombast, 
and the shameful altercations with her foes with which Euripi- 
des sets her forth. One cannot think that Euripides had much 
joy in this creation. She is a mouth-piece of his bitterness. 
Nevertheless, it is more likely that the type which she is meant 
to represent here and in the Troades (48 ff.), where she gives a 
didactic catalogue of her own virtues, influenced Sophocles, than 
that his beautiful and womanly Deianira suggested anything 
for the character of Andromache. Sophoclean as Deianira is in 
her nobility, hers is a character not paralleled elsewhere in his 
plays. The ἐρῶσα γυνή is Euripides’s province and not Sopho- 
cles’s.' 

I conclude then that Zielinski is wrong in placing the Tra- 
chinians before the Andromache, since the prologue of the 
former has Euripidean touches which can be traced to the 
prologue of the Andromache; and, further, the portrayal of the 
faithful wife wholly devoted to her husband may have been 
suggested by Euripides’s play. 

1 Aristoph., Frogs, v. 1044. 








00 


To come to the Heracles itself, Zielinski has not been at all 
more successful in his attempt to show its dependence on the 
Trachinians than in his similar attempts with other Euripidean 
plays. The Heracles and the Trachinians have many verbal 
resemblances and resemblances of style and motive. The verbal 
resemblances, many and striking though they are, are not deci-. 
sive enough to form in themselves an absolutely convincing 
argument. It is in the use of various motives and characters of 
the Euripidean play that the imitation on the part of Sophocles 
becomes evident. Dieterich has shown in the Rheinisches 
Museum for 1892! in his article on “Schlafscenen auf der 
Attischen Biihne” that Sophocles has introduced his sleeping 
Heracles, whose sleep by no means follows naturally upon the 
fiery anguish of the poisoned robe, because of the famous 
scene in the Heracles, where the sleep of the hero is fully, 
though supernaturally, motived. He makes the point, which 
Wilamowitz further elaborates’, that the old man who attends 
Heracles in the Trachinians is merely a double of Amphi- 
tryon. Wilamowitz shows that Sophocles has represented his 
Heracles as in the play of Euripides, overcome with madness at 
a sacrifice, committing a deed of madness, which, however, in 
the Trachinians is so perfunctory that no one pays any attention 
to it, and finally asleep on the stage attended by an old man 
who does not appear elsewhere in the Trachinians. The orig- 
inality of all the motives in the Heracles is clear. Zielinski, to 
maintain his thesis, is driven to calling the old man Heracles’s 
physician. Even if this far-fetched idea could be substantiated, 
the derivation of the scene and character from Euripides would 
yet be undeniable. 

In its verbal style the Trachinians displays some traits that 
are Euripidean. The use of λέχος and λέκτρον is noted by 
Fraccaroli: “In Trachiniis, que Sophoclis fabula maximum 
numerum habet, septies invenias’’.° 

1 Rh. M. 46, pp. 25-46. 


2 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Heracles (1895), 1, p. 153. 
83 Fraccaroli, J., De Euripidis scribendi artificiis, Auguste Taurinorum, 1885. 


67 


The words ἀρτίκολλος, ἀρτίπους, ἀρτίχριστος form a group of 
compounds appearing in this play alone of Sophocles’s extant 
plays. Euripides has a liking for this compound. Cf. ἀρτίδα- 
κρυς, Med. 903; ἀρτιμαθής, Hec. 687; ἀρτίπλουτος, Suppl. 
742; ἀρτίφρων, Med. 295, I. T. 877; ἀρτιθανής, Ale. 600. 
The compound καλλιβόας, Trach. 640, seems to be of great 
significance in view of the fact that Sophocles has but two com- 
pounds of καλλι-, the other also in a late play (O. C. 682), 
while Euripides has no less than twenty compounds of this 
word. Moreover, the καλλιβόας αὐλός is modelled on the 
καλλίφθογγον κιθάραν of Heracles 350. This characteristically 
Euripidean compound is found also in Ion 169 and I. T. 222. 

The repetitions so frequent in Euripides appear in this play, 
as in the Philoctetes and the Cdipus Coloneus, in considerable 
number. ‘There are ten in this play, fifteen in the Philoctetes 
and thirteen in the Cdipus Coloneus. In the earlier plays of 
Sophocles, with the exception of the Ajax, there are notably 
few, the Antigone having but three, the Edipus Tyrannus four. 
In metre Sophocles has been plainly influenced in this play by 
Euripides. The only coupes of Sophocles which is not anti- 
strophic is found in the Trachinians, vv. 879-895. Euripides 
employed such irregular κομμοί largely in the last ten years of 
his life, and the lyric κομμοί without responsion begin with the 
Heracles. They are found besides in the Helen, the Bacchants 
and the Iphigenia at Aulis, and in the Trachinians of Sophocles. 
As Euripides was the great innovator in the κομμός there can 
be no doubt that Sophocles was in this case too the imitator. 

The case for the priority of the Heracles stands thus. In 
the Trachinians Sophocles is indebted to other plays of Euripides, 
notably, as Professor Earle has pointed out’, to the Alcestis 
and the Medea, for scenes, motives and phraseology, to the 
Andromache, as well as to the Medea (see Professor Earle’s 
discussion of the Medea, op. cit., pp. 15-17), for the construc- 
tion of the prologue; and perhaps also (as I think) the character 

1Trans. Am. Phil. Ass. 33, 1. ¢. 





68 


of Andromache, as well as that of Alcestis, suggested the out- 
line of the devoted wife Deianira, although the delicate and 
beautiful coloring of that figure in the Sophoclean play owes 
nothing to Euripides. The metre of the play shows markedly 
the influence of the late Euripidean style. These points indi- 
cate a late date for the Trachinians. Its dependence on the 
Heracles itself is most apparent in the motive of the sleeping- 
scene, introduced without sufficient dramatic justification and 
containing a character of no use or meaning in the development 
of the plot, one whose appearance is perfunctory and due merely 
to the corresponding character in the Euripidean original. 
The rest of the play, if analyzed in the light of this fact, will 
be seen to have derived much from the Heracles and to justify 
Wilamowitz’s statement that the play of Euripides prompted 
Sophocles to compose his Trachinians. 


THE ANDROMACHE. 


The Andromache has been perhaps more variously dated and 
more the subject of dispute than any other play of Euripides 
with the exception of the Heraclide. This is due to its pointed 
political allusions, which must have been perfectly transparent 
to its audiences, which, however, have been interpreted by 
critics of a later day in quite opposing fashions and as pointing 
to various times of composition. 

The information given by the scholia is as follows : 

ταῦτά φησιν Evpirridns λοιδορούμενος τοῖς Σπαρτιάταις διὰ τὸν 
ἐνεστῶτα πόλεμον. καὶ γὰρ δὴ καὶ παρεσπονδήκεσαν εἰς ᾿Αθη- 
ναίους. ἑξῆς δὲ αὐτοὺς εἴς τε τὰ ἄλλα καὶ φιλοχρημάτους κακῶς 
λέγει. καὶ ᾿Αριστοτέλης δὲ τοῦτο ἱστορεῖ ἐν TH τῶν Λακώνων πολι- 
τείᾳ καὶ τὸ ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ αὐτοματισθὲν προστίθησιν ἔπος" ἁ φιλο- 


χρηματία Σπάρτην ὀλεῖ, ἄλλο γὰρ οὐδέν. καὶ φαίνεται γεγραμ- 


μένον τὸ δρᾶμα ἐν ἀρχῇ τοῦ Πελοποννησιακοῦ πολέμου. (Schol. 
Vat. on v. 446.) 

The Venice scholion contains the same with the insertion 
after the citation from Aristotle of the words: εἰλικρινῶς δὲ τοὺς 








69 


τοῦ δράματος χρόνους οὐκ ἔστι λαβεῖν: ov δεδίδακται (δέδεικται 
codd.) γὰρ ᾿Αθήνησιν: o δὲ Καλλίμαχος ἐπιγραφῆναί φησι τῇ 
τραγῳδίᾳ Δημοκράτην. 

Modern critics have assigned the play to various years of the 
Peloponnesian war. Hardion puts it as late as 412-411, Her- 
mann and Welcker assign it to 421-420, Miiller and Pflugk 
to 420-418, Boeckh, Petit, and Hartung to 419-418, Fix to 
422-421, Zirndorfer to 423-422, and Firnhaber to 431-430. 
Wilamowitz counts the play with the oldest group, Alcestis, 
Medea, Heraclide and Hippolytus, and maintains the accu- 
racy of the statement of the Vatican scholion that the play was 
written ἐν ἀρχῇ τοῦ Πελοποννησιακοῦ πολέμου. 

Murray in his recent edition puts the Andromache between 
the Hippolytus and the Hecuba. Bergk has given much at- 
tention to the dating of this play. His earlier opinion’ 
was that the Andromache was brought out at Argos in the 
early part of the nineteenth Olympiad, before the battle of 
Mantinea, by the Argive Democrates or Timocrates, a musician 
who was a friend of Euripides, and that Euripides’s intimacy 
with Alcibiades and his interest in the political aims of the 
latter led to the choice of Argos for the representation of the 
play. He afterward’ came to the conclusion that the play was 
written for and performed before an Athenian audience in the 
second year of the eighty-ninth Olympiad, that it was brought 
out in the name of Menecrates of Argos, whose influence is 
shown in the conservative character of the melic parts. This 
theory rests on the remark of the scholiast ὁ δὲ Καλλίμαχος 
ἐπιγραφῆναί φησι τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ Δημοκράτην and on an inscrip- 
tion discovered in Athens, and published in 1878,° according to 
which . . . νεκράτης won the first prize in tragedy ἐπ᾽ ᾿Αλκαίου. 

I will first consider the opinion of Firnhaber *, who definitely 
puts the composition of the play in the year 431 B. C., before 


1Bergk, Griech. Lit., ΠῚ., pp. 544 ff. 
?Hermes, 13, pp. 487 ff. 

3 Mitth. d. deutsch. Arch. Inst., III, 108. 
4 Firnhaber, Philologus, 3, pp. 408 ff. 








70 


the death of Pericles. He finds an allusion to the faithless- 
ness, cruelty, and covetousness shown by Sparta at the begin- 
ning of the Peloponnesian war in lines 445 ff. : 


> ΄- > 4 » A 
ὦ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποισιν ἔχθιστοι βροτῶν 
/ »Μ ; / 

Σπάρτης ἔνοικοι, δόλια βουλευτήρια, 
ψευδῶν ἄνακτες, μηχανορράφοι κακῶν, 
ἑλικτὰ κοὐδὲν ὑγιὲς, ἀλλὰ πᾶν πέριξ 
φρονοῦντες, ἀδίκως εὐτυχεῖτ᾽ av’ “Ελλάδα. 

/ 3 > 3 e r ᾽ > r ; 
τί δ᾽ οὐκ ἐν ὑμῖν ἐστιν : οὐ πλεῖστοι φόνοι ; 
οὐκ αἰσχροκερδεῖς ; οὐ λέγοντες ἄλλα μὲν 
γλώσσῃ, φρονοῦντες δ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐφευρίσκεσθ᾽ ἀεί; 
ὄλοισθ᾽. 


He sees in lines 471 ff., οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐν πόλεσι δίπτυχοι τυραννίδες 
κ. τ. λ., ἃ contrast between the Spartan government and the 
single rule of Pericles, in which according to Thucydides, I, 
55: ἐγίγνετο λόγῳ μὲν δημοκρατία, ἔργῳ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ πρώτου 
ἀνδρὸς ἀρχή. He finds a reference to Aspasia in line 631 and 
believes that in the defense of the νόθος Molossus the poet is 


in reality defending the legitimizing of the son of Pericles and 
Aspasia, which perhaps took place in the year 431 by the an- 
nulling of the previous Periclean law', μόνους ᾿Αθηναίους εἶναι 
τοὺς ἐκ dvoiv’ Αθηναίων γεγονότας. He refers the lines 734 ff. : 


καὶ viv μέν, ov yap ἄφθονον σχολήν ἔχω, 

ἄπειμ᾽ ἐς οἴκους᾽ ἔστι γάρ τις οὐ πρόσω 

Σπάρτης πόλις τις ἥ πρὸ τοῦ μὲν ἣν φίλη, 

νῦν δ᾽ ἐχθρὰ ποιεῖ, τὴν ἐπεξελθεῖν θέλω 

στρατηλατήσας, ὥστε χειρίαν λαβεῖν' 

ὅταν δὲ τἀκεῖ θῶ κατὰ γνώμην ἐμήν, 

ἥξω, 
to the Spartan expedition of the year 431, which, though it 
took place some months later, might, he thinks, easily have 


1 Plutarch, Pericles, 37. 


71 


been foreseen and so foretold by the poet. He sees a reference 
to the great plague in line 1044, νόσον “EAAds ἔτλα, νόσον, 
and finds that the appearance of the dea ex machina with her 
words of promise and comfort for Peleus is motived by Eurip- 
ides’s desire thus indirectly to give words of consolation to 
Pericles for the loss of his two sons and his sister. Finally he 
argues that lines 1244 ff., with their reference to the Molos- 
sians, must have been composed before 429, in which year the 
Molossians joined the Spartans against the Athenians." 

Firnhaber’s argument does not lack ingenuity and apparent 
plausibility, but it has the vice of interpreting facts in the light 
of a theory instead of basing a theory on the facts. He is eager 
to prove by allusions in this play, as he was also eager to show 
by his interpretation of the Heraclide, an intimate personal and 
political relation between Pericles and Euripides. This fixed 
idea dominates his argument. 

To consider his main points: the violent attack on Sparta is 
not more appropriately assigned to the first years of the war 
than to later years, for example 431 (Thue. V, 35, 39), 420 
(43-45), 416 (105: ἐπιφανέστατα ὧν ἴσμεν Ta μὲν ἡδέα καλὰ 
νομίζουσι, τὰ δὲ ξυμφέροντα δίκαια). The lines 471 ff., where 
Euripides dilates upon the evils of δίπτυχοι τυραννίδες, evi- 
dently have an entirely local Athenian reference. This refer- 
ence would have no point during the life of Pericles, who ruled 
Athens without a rival in spite of murmurs against him and 
attacks on him (Thue. II, 65). Firnhaber’s interpretation of 
the passage as an exaltation of the Athenian government over 
the Spartan constitution is trivial. The theory that Euripides 
is defending the relation of Pericles and Aspasia in his treatment 
of the characters of Andromache and Molossus is in contra- 
diction of the chorus, lines 465 ff. : 


οὐδέ ποτε δίδυμα λέκτρ᾽ ἐπαινέσω βροτῶν 


οὐδ᾽ ἀμφιμάτορας κόρους" 


1Thuc., LI, 80. 





12 


» ὃ ¥ “ , 
ἐριδας οἴκων δυσμενεῖς τε λύπας. 
/ 
μίαν μοι στεργέτω πόσις γάμοις 
/ \ 
ἀκοινώνητον ἀνδρὸς εὐνάν. 


If this play was written before the death of Pericles, it is 
much more likely that these lines would have called to mind 
the criticisms on his private life that were rife in Athens than 
that lines 713-714: 


3 9 » \ “- 

ἀλλ΄ εἰ τὸ κείνης δυστυχεῖ παίδων πέρι, 
lA e a ΄ A 

ἄπαιδας ἡμᾶς δεῖ καταστῆναι τέκνων, 


should have suggested the loss of Pericles’s legitimate sons and 
his desire to legitimize his son Pericles. 

Firnhaber’s argument is at its weakest in his attempt to 
explain lines 733 ff. in a way to make the passage refer to the 
early years of the war. In his desire to have the πόλις in 
question mean Platz he distorts the natural syntax of the lines 
and ignores the logical connection of thought. Menelaus says : 
“1 will go home; for there is, not far from Sparta, a city which 
once was friendly, but now is making unfriendly demonstra- 
tions”. Firnhaber understands the lines to mean, “I will go 
home ; for there is, not far (from this country), a city which was 
once a friend of Sparta, etc.”. According to this rendering 
Firnhaber must supply τῆσδε τῆς χθονός after od πρόσω and 
take Σπάρτης which follows immediately with φίλη at the end 
of the verse. Thus γὰρ has no sense after ἄπειμ᾽ ἐς οἴκους, and 
nothing could have suggested such an interpretation of the 
sentence except the necessity of finding here a reference which 
would suit the theory of the early dating of the play. 

The references to the Molossians at the end of the play have 
doubtless a political meaning, but Firnhaber is certainly not 
Justified in arguing that they must have been composed before 
429 B. C., because the Molossians in that year joined the 
Spartans in hostility to Athens’. Friendly relations existed 


‘See Bergk, Hermes, XVIII, p. 506. 


19 


later between Athens and the Molossians, and no argument for 
the date of the play can properly be based on Euripides’s allu- 
sions to contemporary events of which we have absolutely no 


knowledge. 

In line 1044, νόσον ᾿Ελλὰς ἔτλα, νόσον, it is possible that 
the force of νόσον, used here, as often, in a figurative sense, 
may have been intensified by the recollections of the horrors of 
the plague ; but even so it is not a necessary deduction that the 
verse was written in the time “wo die pest bereits ein jahr 
gewiithet”. Firnhaber’s arguments to prove the early date of 
the Andromache from the political allusions contained in it 
must be condemned as ineffectual. He is fanciful in his inter- 
pretation and entirely unsatisfactory in his explanation of the 
two striking passages, lines 733-736 and 471-473, which offer 
the most tangible suggestions for dating the play by references 
to contemporary history. 

The dating of Hardion is interesting as one of the earliest 
of modern attempts to date the play from its political illusions. 
His interpretation is dramatic ; but to state his theory is almost 
to refute it. He says:' “Plus j’examine cette Tragédie, & 
plus je persiste ἃ croire, que dans le caractére d’ Andromaque & de 
Pélée, Euripide a voulu donner un tableau de la ville d’ Athénes 
dans l’estat de foiblesse ot elle se trouvaaprés le combat d’Orope ; 
elle n’avoit ni troupes, ni vaisseaux ni argent; la plus grande 
partie de ses alliez l’avoient abandonnée ; & il ne restoit de res- 
source aux Athéniens, pour se garantir de leur ruine totale, que 
dans leur courage & leur fermeté. And later p. 271 : “‘il n’est pas 
vraysemblable qu’ Euripide efit parlé, comme il a fait, de la pro- 
spérité & de la puissance des Lacédémoniens avant la vingtiéme 
année de la guerre du Péloponnése: ou qu'il les efit apostrophez 
si durement pendant que la tréve subsistoit entre ’un & l’autre 
peuple”. Of verses 471 ff., he says (p. 272): “ Ce passage peut, 
ce me semble, s’appliquer trés-heureusement ἃ l’admiration du 
Conseil des 400. dont le peuple témoigna beaucoup de mécontente- 


1 Dissertation sur |’ Audromaque : Memoires de |’ Academie, Vol. 8 (1733), 
p. 269 sq. 





74 


ment, je ne vois aucune autre circonstance de l’histoire d’ Athénes 
pendant la vie d’Euripide, ἃ laquelle il puisse convenir”. 
Euripides would hardly have presented to his audience an 
Athens symbolized by the βάρβαρος Andromache and the old 
man Peleus. The Electra might afterwards call to the minds 
of Greeks Athens fallen from her glory, but she was ’A-yapé- 
μνονος κούρα, a Greek princess. It is pushing allegorizing quite 
too far to see in all unhappy heroines a type of sorrowing Athens. 
Further, δίττυχοι τυραννίδες is a phrase which suits very ill 
the situation in 411. The words naturally refer to two men 
who would be τύραννοι at the same time, not to the struggle 
between oligarchy and democracy. Again it is evident from 
Thucydides that Sparta recovered her prestige by the battle 
of Mantinea, and that it would be quite reasonable for a poet 
to speak as Euripides does of the prosperity and power of 
the hated Lacedemon long before the twentieth year of the 
war. 

None of Hardion’s positions are tenable, and no one has 
accepted his dating. 

Two of the most recent expressions of opinion about the 
date of the play are those of von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and 
of Bergk. Both in the Analecta Euripidea (1875) and in 
his edition of the Heracles Wilamowitz upholds the opinion 
given in the scholia on line 446. He says (Anal. Eur., loc. 
cit.): ‘*tempus rectius quam plerique recentiores definivit vetus 
grammaticus ; nam numeri fabulam annis 430-424 adtribuunt, 
neque historia obstat”’. Again (Herakles, I. 143): “Eine anzahl 
von dramen des Euripides weisen sich durch einen gemeinsamen 
altertiimlicheren und strengeren stil als verwandt aus; es sind 
Alkestis Medeia Hippolytus Andromache Herakleiden. 516 
fallen alle teils nach urkundlichen angaben, teils nach sicheren 
geschichtlichen anspielungen vor 425”. “ Von der Andro- 
mache hat das richtig schon Aristophanes von Byzanz erschlos- 


sen schol. 445. die entgegengesetzten ausfiihrungen von Bergk 
sind nur dafiir lehrreich, wie dieser ebenso wunderbar gelehrte 





75 


wie scharfsinnige mann scharfsinn und gelehrsamkeit dazu zu 
gebrauchen pflegt, die zeugnisse erst zu zerstéren, damit er sie 
fiir seine eignen einfille benutzen kénne” (ibid., footnote 49). 

It appears from these citations that Wilamowitz’s grounds 
for placing the Andromache among the earliest extant dramas 
are metrical and stylistic. But in these respects the Andro- 
mache shows very great divergences from the Alcestis, Medea, 
Heraclide and Hippolytus, and coincides with the middle 
group. 

To take up the points in detail: Rumpel’s investigations of 
the resolutions in the trimeter show a wide divergence between 
the Andromache and the earlier group, the Andromache having 
an average of a resolution to every six lines, the four early plays 
one to every sixteen and a half lines. Further the Andromache 
has one line (which Wilamowitz rejects) with three resolutions, 
line 333: Μενέλαε, φέρε δὴ διαπεράνωμεν λόγους. This com- 
bination of anapest, tribrach, and dactyl appears only in the 
later dramas, and there are but ten instances of it. The play 
contains also a line with two tribrachs and one with two dactyls 
(lines 40, 1157), cases of which, as Rumpel says, appear almost 
exclusively in the later plays. 

Wilamowitz notes the use of “enoplic dochmiacs” in the 
Heracles as one proof of its composition after 424. He men- 
tions the fact that these are found only in the Andromache, 
Troades, Ion, Iphigenia Taur., Helen, Phcenissz, Orestes and 
Bacche. Here, then, is another metrical point of coincidence 
between the Andromache and the later dramas. The Andro- 
mache contains two duets, or ἀμοιβαῖα, of which the Medea, 
Heraclide, and Hippolytus offer no examples, and two monodies. 

Another mark of later composition is the irrelevancy of the 
chorus songs to the situation and the wandering and vague 
interest of the chorus in the fate of the principal actors. Of 
the first stasimon Friederich says: “ Est autem carmen ex 60 
genere que ipsa rerum condicione neglecta que antecedunt 
epicorum more narrant et ab ovo quasi Lede, ut aiunt, exordium 





76 


faciunt”. This criticism is deserved by the other choral songs 
as well, the burden of all of which is foreign to the dramatic 
situation. It is instructive in this connection to compare 
the choral songs in the Hecuba, lines 629-656, and in the An- 
dromache, lines 274-308 : 


ἐμοὶ χρῆν συμφορᾶν, 
ἐμοὶ χρῆν πημονὰν γενέσθαι, 
᾿δαίαν ὅτε πρῶτον ὕλαν κ. τ. X.' 


7 μεγάλων ἀχέων ἄρ᾽ ὑπῆρξεν, ὅτ᾽ ᾿Ιδαίαν 
ἐς νάπαν ἦλθ᾽ ὁ Μαίας τε καὶ Διὸς τόκος κ. τ. λ.ἦ 


The motive of the songs is the same, the woes that have 
come from the judgment of Paris. In the Hecuba the song 
suits the situation of the captive Trojan women, who have just 
heard the recital of the death of Polyxena and see Hecuba 
prostrate before them. In the Andromache, however, there 
is, as Friederich says in the quotation above, no connection 
between the condition of things on the stage, where Andromache 
and Hermione have just concluded a violent dispute, and the 
judgment of Paris. The chorus of the Hecuba is expanded in 
the chorus of the Andromache, and reminiscences of it appear 
elsewhere in the Andromache (cf. lines 103-104). A com- 
parison of the two passages will clearly show the originality of 
the Hecuba, which puts the Andromache at least after 425. 

The frequency of the repetition of words in the figure known 
as ἐπίζευξις has been mentioned often in the discussion of the 
other plays as an indication of the period of composition. In 
the Alcestis I have counted ten such repetitions (the large 
number being accounted for by the character of the drama, in 
that it takes the place of a satyr-play), in the Medea five, in the 
Heraclide two, in the Hippolytus ten, and in the Andromache 
seventeen or eighteen, the Andromache thus clearly approaching 
the freedom of the latest plays. 


1 Hecuba, vy. 627 ff. 
3 Andromache, vv. 274 ff. 











17 


It appears, then, that Wilamowitz is not justified in his 
vague statement that the Andromache belongs stylistically with 
the older plays, since in freedom of trimeter resolutions, ex- 
pansion of the lyric parts, irrelevancy of the choral songs, and 
frequency of the repetition of words, it has the stamp of later 
com position. 

Bergk’s exact dating of the play in 422 rests, as I have said, 
upon an inscription discovered at Athens and published in the 
Mittheilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts for 
1878. He identifies the . . . vexparns of this inscription with 
the Democrates of the scholiast, and regards him as a ὑποδιδάσ- 
καλος for Euripides. He had previously also noted the proba- 
bility of the identity of Democrates with the Argive Timocrates 
of thebiography. Bergk thinks it improbable that ἃ poet whose 
name is not mentioned elsewhere than in this inscription should 
have gained the first tragic prize in 423-422, “da Sophokles 
und Euripides damals die Biihne beherrschten und die μέλη 
des einen wie die ἐπύλλια des andern als der héchste Gewinn 
des grossen Festfeiers betrachtet werden, s. Aristoph. Frieden, 
531”. Euripides, however, gained the first prize but four 
times in his life and we are very far from having a complete list 
of the tragedians who gained first prizes in the years when the 
first prize did not fall to either Sophocles or Euripides. In 
our dearth of information, then, it seems hardly safe to date 
the Andromache, as Bergk does, on the strength of this inscrip- 
tion and against the tradition that the play was not given in 
Athens. To gain further evidence for his date, Bergk emends 


the scholion καὶ yap δὴ καὶ παρεσπονδήκεσαν εἰς ᾿Αθηναίους to 


καὶ yap Μένδην καὶ Σκιώνην ἀποστήσαντες παρεσπονδήκεσαν. 
This of course seems to give him valuable historical facts for 
the dating of the play, but it is palpably a manufacturing of 
evidence and merits the severe judgment of Wilamowitz already 
cited. 

Unlike Wilamowitz, who believes that Euripides, how- 
ever much detested by Aristophanes on other grounds, never- 





78 


theless held the same political views as the comic poet, Bergk 
maintains that Euripides in this play is supporting Cleon. Of 
lines 471 ff. he says, “im Hause wie im Staate bedarf es eines 
einheitlichen kraftigen Regimentes, welches den rechten Augen- 


blick zu benutzen versteht ; daher entscheidet sich der Tragiker 
fiir die φαυλοτέρα φρὴν αὐτοκρατοῦς ἑνός ἃ. ἢ. fiir Kleon”’. 
He says of the poet, ““ Euripides ist eine leicht erregbare fiir 
jeden Eindruck empfiingliche Natur; so folgt er auch in der 
Politik der Strémung des Tages, ist fremden Einfliissen zugiing- 
lich ; er hat eben keine feste politische Ansicht ; ein Charakter, 
der treulich die einmal gewonnene Ueberzeugung wahrt, konnte 
unméglich in der Andromache mit allen Mitteln seiner Kunst 
das Kriegsfeuer schiiren und im niichsten Jahre in dem Kres- 
phontes das Glick des Friedens preisen”. The truth of this last 
statement of Bergk’s is so palpable that it forms a strong argu- 
ment against his dating of the play. Quite unconscious of the 
petitio principtt involved in his argument, he proceeds, “ Die 
offentliche Stimmung war eben im Laufe weniger Monate vél- 
lig umgeschlagen, so stimmt auch Euripides, der vor keiner 
Inconsequenz zuriickscheut, in den lauten Jubel bei’’. 

The Erechtheus, in which comes the chorus κείσθω δόρυ μοι 
μίτον ἀμφιπλέκειν ἀράχναις κ. τ. X., was composed a little before 
the peace of Nicias'. The Cresphontes, too, with its invocation 
of Εὐρήνα βαθύπλουτε seems to have preceded that peace by 
not many years. Cf. line 3, ζῆλός μοι σέθεν ws ypovifers. 

Bergk is right in saying that to have written the Andromache 
at the period before the Peace of Nicias in which Euripides 
wrote the other plays with their praise and exaltation of peace 
is most inconsistent and unreasonable and betrays a fickle, 
irresponsible soul. Sed secundum datur in this case. The 
Andromache was not written in this period. 

Zirndorfer also puts the date of the Andromache in the 
second year of the eighty-ninth Olympiad, inferring this date 
from the metre and from the political allusions. He finds that 


Plut. Nicias, 9. Meineke, Zeitschr. f. ἃ, Alterthumsw., 1843, p. 185. 








19 


in the matter of resolutions in the trimeter the Andromache 
stands between the Hecuba and the Heracles. He puts the 
Hecuba in the last year of the eighty-eighth Olympiad, the 
Heracles in the third of the eighty-ninth, thus leaving for the 
Andromache Olympiad 89.1 or 89.2. It is of course impossi- 
ble to date a play definitely in this fashion. The number of 
resolutions in the trimeter is an important general indication of 
the period in which a play was composed, but neither consciously 
nor unconsciously could Euripides well have used a fixed arith- 
metical progression in the number of resolutions which he per- 
mitted himself in writing his dramas. 

Zirndorfer and Bergk both refer the general political “‘'Ten- 
denz” of the play to the embitterment felt in Athens against 
Sparta because of the defection of Scione and Mende immedi- 
ately after the truce. (Cf. Thuc., IV, 122-123.) 

There were, however, other occasions in the course of the 
Peloponnesian war when the Athenians were greatly embittered 
against the Spartans, accusing them of bad faith, and Zirndorfer 
and Bergk fail to show that this occasion fits the allusions in 
the play more inevitably than several others. Moreover the 
date which they advocate is entirely inconsistent with the refe- 
rences to the prosperity of Sparta. They tell of a Sparta hated 
for her selfishness, cruelty, and treachery, but still preéminently 
successful and renowned for soldiery. 


Cf. v. 449, ἀδίκως εὐτυχεῖτ᾽ av’ ᾿Ἑλλάδα, and 
vv. 724-- 720, εἰ ἀπῆν δορὸς 


r Ss / a ὃ , \ / > 4 
τοῖς Xtraptiatais δόξα Kai μάχης ἀγών, 
τἄλλ᾽ ὄντες ἴστε μηδενὸς βελτίονες. 


These words could not have been written of Sparta in the 
years between Sphacteria and Mantinea, at which time Thucyd- 
ides expressly says that the Spartans were taxed throughout 
Greece with cowardice, as a result of their misfortunes at Sphac- 





80 


teria, and with slowness and ineffectiveness in war. This re- 
proach Thucydides says they did away with by their victory 
at Mantinea. See Thuc. V. 75: καὶ τὴν ὑπὸ τῶν Ἕ, λλήνων 
τότε ἐπιφερομένην αἰτίαν ἔς τε μαλακίαν διὰ τῆν ἐν τῇ νήσῳ 
ξυμφορὰν καὶ ἐς τὴν ἄλλην ἀβουλίαν τε καὶ βραδυτῆτα ἑνὶ ἔργῳ 
τούτῳ ἀπελύσαντο, τύχῃ μέν, ὡς ἐδόκουν, κακιζόμενοι, γνώμῃ 
δὲ οἱ αὐτοὶ ἔτι ὄντες. The phrase τύχῃ μὲν κακιζόμενοι contrasts 
with the Euripidean εὐτυχεῖτ᾽ av’ “Ελλάδα. Again, in relating 
the Argive hopes of supremacy in the Peloponnesus, Thucy- 
dides' says: κατὰ yap τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ἥ τε Λακεδαίμων 
μάλιστα δὴ κακῶς ἤκουσε καὶ ὑπερώὠφθη διὰ τὰς ξυμφορᾶς, 
οἵ τε ᾿Αργεῖοι ἄριστα ἔσχον τοῖς πᾶσιν, οὐ ξυναράμενοι τοῦ 
᾿Αττικοῦ πολέμου. This also fails to accord with the εὐτυ- 
χεῖτε and the δορὸς δόξα and μάχης ἀγών of the Andromache. 

The Andromache must, then, have followed the battle of 
Mantinea. The tone of it is exactly in accord with the Athe- 
nian feeling toward Sparta after that battle. And there are 
other points in the play which confirm that dating of it. There 
is a passage in the Andromache which gives so definite a poli- 


tical reference that the right interpretation of it gives a clearly 
approximate date for the play. This reference Bergk, in my 
opinion, interpreted correctly in his earlier discussion, though 
he gave up his interpretation later. The passage is the speech 
of Menelaus, lines 733-737 : 


v 9 3 » > ΄ 
ἄπειμ᾽ ἐς οἴκους" ἔστι γάρ τις οὐ πρόσω 
Ul \ a \ 
Σπάρτης πόλις τις ἣ πρὸ TOD μὲν ἣν φίλη, 
“ δ᾽ 9 \ .“ 
νῦν δ᾽ εχθρὰ ποιεῖ κ. τ. Δ. 


Of this he rightly says :* “ Eine unverkennbare Hindeutung 
auf Mantinea findet sich 733”. In his later discussion, how- 
ever, he says: ‘ Man muss an Argos fest halten, denn die Po- 
litik der Athener hatte von aller Zeit her das benachbarte aber 
ebendeshalb verfeindete Argos in den Kreis ihrer Beziehungen 
gezogen ἢ". 

1Thuc. V, 28. 

2Griech. Litt., LI, p. 544. 


81 


I believe that Bergk in his earlier reference of this passage 
to Mantinea had discovered the right application of πόλις τις, 
and he alone, so far as I know, has understood this correctly. 
With this interpretation, however, he makes the wrong infe- 
rence for the date of the play, putting it in 420, to which year 
its tone is obviously unsuited, and referring this passage to the 
events related in Thucydides, V. 38. “Eben in diese Zeit, Ol. 
90.1, oder das niichste Jahr wird die Auffihrung der Tragédie 
fallen, die jedenfalls vor der Schlacht bei Mantinea, welche die 
politischen Verhiltnisse wesentlich umgestaltete, gedichtet sein 
muss”’. 

That the reference in these lines must be to Mantinea rather 
than to Argos, as has been generally assumed, and as Bergk 
himself later believed, is clear to one that considers the rela- 
tions between Sparta and these two cities. Fix pointed out 
that Menelaus’s words : 


πόλις τις ἣ πρὸ τοῦ μὲν ἣν φίλη, 


do not suit Argos, a city of which Thucydides says that it was 
the constant enemy of Sparta, Λακαδαιμονίοις αἰεὶ διάφορον. 
The Mantineans, on the contrary, fought on the Spartan side 
against Demosthenes in Acarnania in 426 and seceded from the 
Spartan alliance in 421%. 

In my discussion of the date of the Suppliants, which cele- 
brates the alliance made in 420 with Argos, I spoke of the 
evidence for a personal relation of friendship between Euripides 
and Alcibiades. I should not say with Bergk that Alcibiades 
found Euripides a “gefiigiges Werkzeug fir seine Pline und 
Rinke”’, but there are, I believe, strong grounds for holding 
that Euripides was impressed by the magnificent personality of 
Alcibiades, and that he admired and sympathized with his great 
kinsman Pericles. In the fifth book of Thucydides there is 
plenty of evidence of the activity of Alcibiades in the Pelopon- 


1 Thue. V, 29. 
Thue. ΠῚ, 107-109. 





82 


nesus against Sparta, and in the sixth book Alcibiades boasts 
of his achievement in bringing about the battle of Mantinea: 
Λακεδαιμονίους ἐς μίαν ἡμέραν κατέστησα ἐν Μαντινείᾳ περὶ τῶν 
ἁπάντων ἀγωνίσασθαι, ἐξ οὗ περιγενόμενοι τῇ μάχῃ οὐδέπω 
καὶ νῦν βεβαίως θαρσοῦσιν. It was Alcibiades that sent the 
message inviting the Mantineans and Argives to send repre- 
sentatives to Athens which resulted in the alliance which 
Euripides celebrates in the closing lines of the Suppliants. 
His influence with them is proved by the fact that, when the 
Salaminia was sent to fetch Alcibiades from Sicily, orders were 
given not to arrest him for fear of alienating the Argives and 
Mantineans, whose participation in the expedition was ascribed 
to him’. It is entirely natural that the bitterness felt by Alci- 
biades and his followers after the battle of Mantinea, from which 
they hoped so much, should be reflected in the Andromache. The 
identification of the city od πρόσω Σπάρτης is overwhelmingly 
convincing, if one consider the history of the years 421-417, 
as ‘Thucydides gives it. 


I find another argument for my dating of the play in the 
lines 471 ff. : 


οὐδὲ γ᾽ ἐνὶ πόλεσι δίπτυχοι τυραννίδες κ. τ. r. 


I believe that there is here a reference to the state of affairs in 
Athens, which brought about the ostracism of Hyperbolus. 
Ostracism had not been employed in Athens since the choice 
between Pericles and Thucydides, son of Melesias, in the year 
442. The people still voted in the first ecclesia of the sixth 
prytany whether to employ ostracism or not in the current year.” 
In the first years of political prominence of Alcibiades, his 
imperious temper and the bitterness of the rivalry between him 
and Nicias brought another vote of ostracism. But times had 
changed, and this type of deadly political duel was not suited 
to the new order of things. The affair took an unexpected 


1Thuc. VI, 61, 24-25. 
2 Arist., Pol. Ath., 43, 5. 


83 


turn, and ostracism was deprived of its prestige forever by the 
ostracizing of Hyperbolus, οὐ διὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀξιώματος φόβον 
ἀλλὰ διὰ πονηρίαν καὶ αἰσχύνην τῆς πόλεως." 

Beloch and Holm place the ostracism of Hyperbolus after 
the battle of Mantinea in opposition to Kirchhoff, Gilbert, and 
Busolt, who place the affair before that battle. Beloch says :* 
“Das Jahr des Ostracismus ist nicht iiberliefert. Auf 417 
fiihrt Theopomp. fr. 103, und eine Erwiigung der politischen 
Lage. . . . Immerhin bleibt die Méglichkeit, dass Hyperbolus 
schon im Jahre 418 oder erst 416 verbannt worden ist’. 

It seems more likely that the extreme measure of the voting 
to use ostracism should have been adopted after the battle of 
Mantinea, in which the fruit of Alcibiades’s leadership was 
apparent, than before, considering that he had been in politics 
so short a time. His first appearance in public matters had 
been in 420, in connection with the Argive alliance. ‘Two 
years later came the battle of Mantinea, in which an Athenian 
contingent fought as allies of Argos and Mantinea. The ques- 
tion of Athenian policy was sharply defined by this battle — 
Spartan with Nicias or anti-Spartan with Alcibiades. To this 
situation the verses 471-485 are well-suited and there can be 
no question that the writer of the Suppliants and the Andro- 
mache preferred the τυραννίς of Alcibiades with his Argive 
affiliations to that of the Laconizing Nicias. 

To resume, then, the Andromache could not have been com- 
posed in the early years of the war, as the scholiast on line 
446, Firnhaber, Wilamowitz, Murray, and others maintain, 
because its metrical and stylistic peculiarities sever it from the 
early group and because no reasonable explanation can be 
found in the events of the first year of the war for its obvious 
political allusions. It cannot have been written between 
Sphacteria and Mantinea, as Bergk, Zirndorfer, and others 
believe, because Spartan success and prestige are emphasized in 


1Thue. VIII, 73. Xe 
3 Beloch, Griech. Geschichte, I, p. 577. Cf. Attische Politik, p. 339 ff. 





84 


this play, though with bitter dislike of Sparta, and we are told 
repeatedly and emphatically by Thucydides that during that 
period Spartan reputation was diminished throughout Greece, 
and that only by the battle of Mantinea did Sparta regain the 
prestige lost at Sphacteria. Finally, the date 418-417 suits the 
style of the play, explains the reference in πόλις τις οὐ πρόσω 
and in δίπττυχοι τυραννίδες, and is in accord with the bitterness 
openly displayed against a victorious Sparta. 

The battle of Mantinea took place in June of the year 
418. The Andromache was composed after that battle, in the 
course of 418-417, and may have been produced in Argos 
after the overthrow of the short-lived oligarchy established 
under Spartan auspices and the restoration of the democracy 
in the summer of 417. 


THE Ion. 


The attempts to date the Ion exactly have not been success- 
ful. No convincing parodies on it have been noted, the refe- 
rences in it to political events, unlike those in the Heraclide, 
Suppliants, and Andromache, do not point inevitably to a sin- 
gle year, and its relations to other plays are not of an absolutely 
decisive character. 

It has been put as early as 428-425 by those who see in 
the mention of the promontory of Rhium in the speech of 
Athena (line 1572) a reference to the naval engagement off 
Rhium in 429, in which the Athenians were victorious.' Thucy- 
dides gives a detailed account of the battle, and Pausanias says 
that the Athenians built a stoa at Delphi in honor of their vic- 
tory”. It has been argued that the prominence given the 
description of the architecture at Delphi is significant in this 
regard. 

Hermann believes that the play was composed no later than 
424-421, “Est autem, quantum ex numeris colligi potest, 


1 See Boeckh, Gree. Trag. Princ. 
2Thuc., II, 90-92., Paus., 10, 6, 11. 


85 


scripta hee fabula nec post Ol. 89 nec multo prius.”' He 
sees in the adoption of Ion a reflection on Athenian conditions 
in 424 when many citizens were disfranchised for dubious 
parentage. Dindorf? places the Ion among the intermediate 
plays, and gives it the range of Ol. 88-91. Von Wilamowitz- 
Moellendorff® sets the limits 420-412 for the play. Masque- 
ray, who cites him as putting the date before 420, appears to 
have misunderstood his earliest statement of his opinion in the 
Analecta Euripidea, which he has further modified in his later 
utterances.t Zirndorfer on metrical grounds puts the play in 
410. Enthoven® for metrical reasons, because of a supposed 
caricature of the Ion in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes, and 
because of coincidences in phrase with the Helen, puts it in 412. 
Haigh δ puts it in the period immediately following the Sicilian 
expedition, giving as his reasons for preferring this date the 
character of the versification and the hostility shown in the play 
toward the Delphic oracle. Fix held that the play was com- 
posed about 420, when “ mortuo iam Cleone, Hyperbolus tan- 
tam auctoritatem apud populum consecutus est, ut fere solus 
regnare videretur ”’. 

The arguments for the early dating, 428-424, are not in 
themselves conclusive, and this dating is inconsistent with the 
internal character of the play, which in all its stylistic qualities 
diverges so greatly from the severity of the Hippolytus and even 
from the Hecuba, which is in some respects the forerunner of 


the poet’s later work. It is by no means necessary that a men- 
tion of the battle of Rhium should imply that a play was written 
within but a few years of that event. It is evident that the Athen- 
ians regarded that battle as a notable victory, as their offering 
at Delphi shows. The inscription is still to be seen : ᾿Αθηναῖοι 


1 Hermann, Prefatio ad Ionem, p. xxXil. 

2Schol. Ar., Wasps, 1, 416. 

3 Anal. Eurip., p. 154; Herakles, I, p. 144, 

‘Hermes, 18, p. 242. 

5 Enthoven, Ludovicus, De Ione Fab. Eur. Queestiones select, Bonne, 1888. 
6 Haigh, op. cit., p. 304. 








80 


ἀνέθεσαν τὴν στοὰν καὶ τὰ OTA<a K>al τἀκροτήρια ἑλόντες 
τῶν πο-- λεμίω;»»ν. “The Athenians dedicated the colonnade 
and the arms and the figure-heads which they took from 
their enemies.” Pausanias’s dating of the stoa is questioned 
on epigraphical grounds by Haussoullier, Hicks, Dittenber- 
ger, and Kohler, while others defend his statement because 
of the architectural evidence!. But in any case his statement 
about the inscription which mentioned the name of Phormio, 
the successful general, and about the sacrifice of thanksgiv- 
ing at Rhium in honor of the victory, is in all likelihood cor- 
rect and shows the importance attached to the victory to have 


been great enough to warrant a reference to that coast even in 
later years of the war as 


NS παραλίας ‘Piov πέλας. 
Y ρ 


The metrical peculiarities of the play make the early dating of 
Boeckh and Hermann so improbable as to be practically impos- 
sible. In resolutions of the trimeter the Ion stands between 
the Tauric Iphigenia and the Helen. The piece has two mon- 
odies, both of the later type, one partly antistrophic and the 
other entirely without responsion. The alternate songs of the 
actors, lines 1439-1509, are of the later asymmetric type, con- 
structed like the similar passages in the Iphigenia among the 
Taurians and the Helen, all three of them being recognition- 
scenes. Further there is an extended use of the trochaic tetra- 
meter, the old metre used in but two extant plays by Aeschylus 
and in one by Sophocles, revived by Euripides, its revival co- 
inciding with increasing license in the iambic trimeter. It 
is found in this play in three long passages and in dialogue, 
whereas in the Heracles, probably the earliest extant play of 
Euripides in which it is used, it occurs but once and in the pas- 
sage where Madness appears, sent by Hera. All but two lines 
here belong to her. So in the Troades it is the maddened Cas- 


‘Frazer, Pausanias, V, pp. 282 ff. 


87 


sandra who uses it and in but one passage. In the later plays 
it is used more freely, chiefly of course for excited utterance. 
Repetitions are frequent in the play in its lyrical portions, a 
this, as has often been noted already, is a mannerism whic 
grows more apparent in the later plays. I find fifteen cases 
of ἐπίζευξις. These stylistic considerations, as has sient 
been argued, tell against the assumption of a date as early 
as that which Boeckh and Hermann would establish. 

The late dating of Haigh, who puts the play immediately 
after the Sicilian expedition, appears to me to be also untenable. 
This dating puts it certainly after the Helen and, in all prob- 
ability, after the Tauric Iphigenia, to which plays it has many 
likenesses. Its priority to the Helen appears evident to me in 
one passage, although the argument may appear to rest on sub- 
jective and esthetic grounds. I mean the ᾿ purpureus pan- 
nus”, Helen, 243 ff., where Hermes carries away Helen 
χλοερὰ δρεπομέναν ἔσω πέπλων, which is a reminiscence of the 


exquisite lines in the Ion, 887 ff.: 


ἦλθές μοι χρυσῷ χαίταν 
μαρμαίρων, εὖτ᾽ ἐς κόλπους 
κρόκεα πέταλα φάρεσιν ἔδρεπον 
ἀνθίζοντα χρυσαυγῆ. 


Of this passage Masqueray well says: “ Point a8 — 
inutiles, une précision lumineuse, l’effet est saisissant 7 The 
situation in the Ion is a beautiful and complete picture, in the 
it is entirely unconvincing. peed 
"- pissin if the priority of the lon to the Iphigenia 
and the Helen may be found, I believe, in the recognition 
scenes. The ἀναγνώρισις in the Ion is similar to that in the 
Iphigenia both in metre and method. The recognition-scene 
in the Helen closely resembles that of the Iphigenia. Mas- 
queray points out! that these three sets of ἀμοιβαῖα are unique 


1 Masqueray, op. cit., 257. 





88 


in their construction. Of them he says: “On a vu comment 
Euripide aprés de longs tatonnements arriva enfin A la perfec- 
tions dans les trois chants de reconnaissance qui sont une des 
beautés de ’Héléne”. The duet in the Helen Masqueray 
calls “le plus remarquable de tous ceux qui existent dans le 
théadtre des Grecs”. This he regards as the climax of Euri- 
pides’s efforts in this direction, and the inference is that the 
Helen follows the other two dramas in time of composition. 
Between the Iphigenia and the Ion it is not easy to decide 
the question of priority. The two plays are recognition-dramas 
with many points in common. Part of the ἀναγνώρισις in each 
play is the ὕφασμα, the sampler worked by the hands of Creiisa 
and Iphigenia respectively. This is evidently one of the stock 
means of recognition such as are criticized by Aristotle in the 
sixteenth chapter of his Poetics: εἴδη δὲ ἀναγνωρίσεως, πρώτη 
μὲν ἡ ἀτεχνοτάτη Kal ἧὗ πλείστῃ χρῶνται δι᾽ ἀπορίαν, ἡ διὰ τῶν 
σημείων. The tokens in the Ion are of the class condemned by 
Aristotle as inartistic, and the description of the tokens in the 
Iphigenia is expressly mentioned by Aristotle as being only less 
bad than the use of tokens — ἐξῆν γὰρ ἂν ἔνια καὶ ἐνεγκεῖν. 
The recognition of Orestes by Iphigenia on the other hand is 
commended by Aristotle as the model type of recognitions 
where “the startling discovery is made by natural means » 
“Such recognition alone”, he continues, “dispenses with the 
artificial aid of tokens and necklaces”, 
| The recognition in the Helen, too, is δι᾿ εἰκότων in that it is 
intimately connected with the plot itself. Menelaus recognizes 
Helen as his real wife when the news of the disappearance of 
the phantom is brought to him. Granted the existence of the 
phantom Helen, which is an essential part of the plot of the play 
the recognition of the true Helen is brought about not by lan 
or tokens but by natural means. Does this mean a progres- 
sion in the art of ἀναγνώρισις on the part of Euripides? In the 
Ion the we find conventional cradle, swaddling-bands, necklace 
bracelets, which are condemned by Aristotle ; in the Iphigenia 


89 


the description of the sampler, the spear and the lock of hair, 
which is characterized by Aristotle as coming next in the scale 
of artistic propriety, but this combined with a recognition ov’ 
εἰκότων, which wins the special approbation of Aristotle ; last 
the Helen with its perfectly natural and artistic recognition, con- 
sistent with and brought about by the exigencies of the super- 
natural plot. The Electra testifies that Euripides was grow- 
ing critical in the matter of ἀναγνώρισις ; for he condemns 
in that play without exception the tokens used by A‘schylus in 
the Choephori, although it must be said that the means he 
himself adopts in the Electra also come under Aristotle’s criti- 
cism. It seems to me entirely probable that there is a working 
out of the technique of the recognition-scene in its motiving 
in these three plays, Ion, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Helen, 
similar to that which Masqueray has pointed out in the metrical 
form of these same scenes. 

I therefore place the Ion before the Iphigenia, which I 
believe to have preceded the Helen. 

Vv. 1582 sqq. appear to me to contain an irrefragable argu- 
ment against Haigh’s dating. How could Athena be repre- 
sented in the years just following the Sicilian Expedition as 
speaking of the islands and the sea-coast Ionian cities as “ giv- 
ing strength to this my land”? Considering the falling away 
of Chios, Miletus, Erythre, Lebedos, Ere, Clazomene, Myti- 
lene, and Eubcea', it would seem impossible that the empire 
which was so rapidly dissolving could have been spoken of with 
such security and pride. It is not the political tone of Aristo- 
phanes’s drama of 411, the Lysistrata. I have not found the 
significance which I attach to these lines mentioned by any 
one, but Wilamowitz makes a similar inference, which appears 
to me not so well founded, from lines 1590 ff., “ Denn die 
Prophezeiung Athenas, welche die Ionier als Nachkommen 
Ions, Dorer und Achaeer als niedere Race behandelt, ist nach 
dem Winter 413-12 einfach undenkbar”’. 1 do not see that 


1Thue. VII, 5 ff. 
2 Hermes, XVIII, p. 242. 





90 


the two latter stocks are treated in any way as inferior in their 
ascription to Xuthos and Creiisa, and I think this passage quite 
as possible after the year 412 as before it. But for the rea- 
son given above I agree with Wilamowitz in making “ der 
Zusammenbruch des Reiches” the terminus ante quem for the 
play. Enthoven’s argument directed toward placing the Ion 
and the Helen together in 412 is not valuable and, as Wila- 
mowitz remarks of a part of it, “richtet sich selbst” |. 

Wilamowitz considers that 421 is the terminus post quem 
for the Ion. “ Der sichere terminus post quem ist Erechtheus 
421, ein eben so sicherer terminus ante quem der Zusammen- 
bruch des Reiches.” This he infers from the reference to the 
plot of the Erechtheus in Ion, lines 275 ff. 

Fix’s argument that the play is to be assigned to 420, when 
Hyperbolus’s power was at its height, must be condemned as 
resting on hypotheses only. That Ion’s long speech, lines 585 
ff., contains political generalizations with a particular applica- 
tion addressed to his Athenian audience rather than to his 
father is clear. That these have Hyperbolus as their object, as 
has been maintained, can be by no means regarded as certain. 
Such pointing of allusions as this rests upon an assumption of a 
knowledge of the politics of the time such as we are very far 
from possessing. Such misgrowths of democracy as Hyperbolus 
were not isolated phenomena in Athens. Euripides’s strictures 
would have been in place during any time in the Peloponnesian 
war after the death of Pericles. 

No exact argument about the date can be gained from the 
attitude of criticism and hostility toward Delphi. Haigh infers 
a date after the Sicilian expedition on this ground, but the 
Andromache was certainly composed before this time and its 
animus toward Delphi is as bitter as that of the Ion. The 
Spartan predilection of the Delphic oracle was evident from the 
beginning of the war. Cf. Thuc. 1, 118, of the Spartans : 
πέμψαντες δὲ ἐς Δελφοὺς ἐπηρώτων τὸν θεὸν εἰ πολεμοῦσιν ἄμεινον 

‘Hermes, XVIII, p. 242. 





91 


ἔσται. ὃ δὲ ἀνεῖλεν αὐτοῖς, ὡς λέγεται, KATA κράτος πολεμοῦσι 
νίκην ἔσεσθαι, καὶ αὐτὸς ἔφη ξυλλήψεσθαι καὶ παρακαλούμενος 
καὶ ἄκλητος. 

The metre and style of the play suggest a late date for it. Its 
resemblances to the Helen and the Iphigenia make it likely that 
it came near them, while in the recognition-scenes it seems to 
show a less advanced technique than these plays. The con- 
trasting of Ionian and Dorian, so sharply brought out by the 
Sicilian Expedition, may find an echo in this play in lines 1690 
ff. Li. 1584 ff. would be impossible after the Sicilian dis- 
aster and the revolt of the σύμμαχοι. I should, then, put its 
composition before the Iphigenia among the Taurians, which I 
assign to 414, and probably after the Sicilian Expedition had 
been brought before the Athenian public as a possible or pro- 
bable undertaking. I place it after the Andromache of 417, to 
the tone of which, as regards the oracle at Delphi, it bears a 
close resemblance. 

My date for the production of the Ion would then be the 
years 416-415. 

THE TROADES. 

Two sources give us the date of the Troades, A‘lian in his 
Varia Historia, 2, 8, and a Scholion in the Wasps of Αεῖμο- 
phanes, line 1317. Alian’s statement is: κατὰ τὴν πρώτην καὶ 
ἐνενηκοστὴν ὀλυμπιάδα, καθ᾽ ἣν ἐνίκα ’KEatveros ὁ aan etna 
στάδιον, ἀντηγωνίσαντο ἀλλήλοις Ἐξενοκλῆς καὶ Reapers, καὶ 
πρῶτός γε ἦν ἘΞενοκλῆς ---- ὅςτις ποτὲ οὗτός ἐστι --- Οἰδίποδι καὶ 
Λυκάονι καὶ Βάκχαις καὶ ᾿Αθάμαντι σατυρικῷ' ὍΝ alg. 
Εὐριπίδης ἣν ᾿Αλεξάνδρῳ καὶ Παλαμήδῃ καὶ Τρφάσι καὶ τὸν 
σατυρικῷ. γελοῖον dé — οὐ γάρ ; — Ἐξενοκλέα μὲν νικᾶν, Εὐριπίδην 
δὲ ἡττᾶσθαϊζ καὶ ταῦτα τοιούτοις δράμασι. 

It is evident from this notice that the Troades was brought 
out in the first year of the ninety-first Olympiad, which would 
place its performance in the spring of 415 B. C. The ‘echotion 
on the line in the Wasps (1317) coincides with this: ὑστερεῖ ἡ 
τῶν Τρῳάδων κάθεσις ἔτεσιν ἑπτά. The Wasps was performed 








92 


in 423-422, before the death of Cleon in the winter campaign 
of 422-421. It came out, then, in the early part of 422, seven 
years before the spring of 415, when the Troades was brought 
on the stage. The style of the play is in accord with the date 
of its production. It stands between the Heracles and the 
Tauric Iphigenia in the matter of resolved feet in the trimeter ; 
the choral parts are greatly expanded ; it contains two mon- 
odies and two ἀμοιβαῖα, one of each being of the asymmetric 
type. It has also passages in the trochaic tetrameter. 
Wilamowitz finds the Troades and the other plays of the tetra- 
logy most significant in relation to the psychology of Euripides 
himself at thistime’. He calls this tetralogy “die absage an die 
vaterstadt ” and finds that it begins the succession of contra- 
dictory and inconsistent plays, as he characterizes it and those 
that follow. He thinks that there is in all the dramas after 
the Suppliants, a bitterness of spirit for which he is inclined 
to make Alcibiades responsible: “im herbste 420 hat er 
dem Alcibiades das festlied auf seinen olympischen sieg ge- 
macht, es liegt nahe die enttiuschung, die dieser daemonisch 
geniale mann so vielen der besten in seinem volke gebracht hat, 
auch fiir die verbitterung des Euripides verantwortlich zu ma- 
chen”. He regards it as well-nigh impossible that Euripides 
should have had close relations with Alcibiades in 416, 
‘nach dem katastrophe von Melos”. And one is impelled to 
agree to this, if Plutarch is right in saying that the decree by 
which the male population of Melos was put to death was ad- 
vocated by Alcibiades. Admitting, however, that Alcibiades 
alienated such men as Euripides from himself at this time, it 
does not appear to follow of necessity that Euripides’s work was 
so profoundly affected by the disillusionment as Wilamowitz 
believes : “dann kommen gewagte versuche, ein intriguenstiick, 
das sich stark nach dem lustspiele neigt, die Helena, phantas- 
tisch sentimentale rihrstiicke, Hypsipyle und Andromeda, 


Aulische Iphigeneia, wieder grelle umdichtung altgeheiligter 
1 Herakles, I, 133. 





93 


sagen, Elektra, Oedipus, Orestes, eine hiufung alter motive zu 
einem grossen schauergemiilde, Phoenissen. mitten zwischen sol- 
chen scenen eine verherrlichung des θεωρητικὸς Bios, Antiope, 
endlich die Bakchen, eine darstellung der wilden geister, die ibn 
ἴῃ dem rasenden taumel hielten, und von denen er sich in der 
neuen umgebung los zu machen suchte, indem er sie verkor- 


perte”’. . 
It is fair to remember that we have a larger proportion of 


extant plays of Euripides belonging to the years from 415 
down to the year of his death than to any other period of his 
literary activity. Other periods might present as many contra- 
dictions as this, were they as fully represented. Further, the 
more romantic character of the work of Euripides in this period 
is due to the “ Zeitgeist ” which is so apparent in all aspects of 
the end of the fifth century, the forerunner of the humanistic 
fourth century, which is indeed, as compared with the fifth, an 
embodiment of the θεωρητικὸς Bios. In this period in which 
Wilamowitz says that Euripides could have had no joy in his 
work, the latter composed the Taurie Iphigenia. This, it ap- 
pears to me, is sufficient answer to the statement of Wil- 
amowitz about this period: “der innere friede war fur den 
dichter verloren : er hat auch kein werk mehr hervorgebracht, 
das uns auch nur in dem masse befreidigen kénnte, wie es selbst 
der Herakles noch kann”. The juxtaposition of the Trojan 
trilogy and the year fraught with potential disaster in which the 
Athenians sailed for Sicily is temptingly suggestive, but an exam- 
ination of the remnant of the trilogy really affords little support 
for the hypothesis that in these plays Euripides spoke from the 
gloom with which his soul was filled, or that in them he renounced 
his country. His interest in the welfare of Athens revived 
speedily in the latter case. Cf. inter alia the closing lines of the 
Electra. In the Troades itself there is nothing that could be 
pressed to give an allusion to the situation of Athens in 41 6-15. 
In that year its outward circumstances were far from being ana- 
logous to those of Troy. Athens was prosperous and strong, its 








94 


treasury being replenished as a result of the years without 
campaigning and its army full of young strength that had 
grown up since the disastrous early years of the war. No 
dominating motive can be observed in the Troades, and its sit- 
uations and language are largely dependent on the Hecuba and 
the Andromache. 

The fragments of the Alexander and the sketch given by 
Hyginus do not yield much for the theory that this trilogy 
voices Euripides’s deep despair. The plot involves only the 
recognition of the young Paris by Cassandra’s gift of prophecy, 
by which means he is saved from death at the hands of his 
brother Deiphobus. The fragments of the play are chiefly sen- 
tentious utterances about the uncertainties of life, the wisdom 
of moderation in grief, qualities of slavery, an encomium of 
εὐγένεια, disparagement of wealth, and like topics. 

The fragments of the Palamedes have more character , There 
are some lines in the style of Prometheus on his benefits to the 


human race by the invention of writing, some striking and much 
quoted verses in the lament for Palamedes : 


> , » > / \ 
EKAVET , EXAVETE τὰν 
πάνσοφον, ὦ Δαναοί, 


\ > 9 » 4 > ͵ “ μ͵ 
τὰν οὐδέν᾽ ἀλγύνουσαν ἀηδόνα μουσᾶν 3. 


There are also lines which doubtless had their own meaning 


to the audience of the time, those quoted by Aristophanes in 
the Frogs, 1446 ff. : 


εἰ τῶν πολιτῶν οἷσι νῦν πιστεύομεν, 
τούτοις ἀπιστήσαιμεν, οἷς δ᾽ οὐ χρώμεθα, 


4 / > Μ θ e » 8 
τούτοισι χρησαίμεσθ᾽, ἴσως σωθεῖμεν ἄν 3, 


It is impossible for us, however, not knowing the exact cir- 


* Aristophanes, however, calls the Palamedes ψυχρός. Thesm. 848. 
? Nauck, Fragm., 588. 


5. Nauck, Fragm., 582. 


95 


cumstances in which they were written, to see the point of the 
verses, and Aristophanes himself seems to use them in ridicule 
of their ambiguous, oracular character. 

I hold, then, that the date of the Trojan trilogy is not of "ἃ 
nificance in the point of reflecting changes of “ Weltanschauung 
on the part of Euripides or in connection with the political 
events of that year. 


THE IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS. 


The style of the Tauric Iphigenia places it indisputably 
among the plays of Euripides’s last period’, ὁ. ¢., “ Helena, 
beide Iphigenien, Phcenissen, Orestes, Bakchen, zu welchen 
von verlornen aber geniigend kenntlichen Andromeda, Antiope, 
Hypsipyle, Bakchen treten, fiir sie alle mit ausnahme der taur- 
ischen Iphigenia ist die entstehung im letzen_ jahrzehnt des 
dichters urkundlich bezeugt”. The resolutions in the trimeter 
give it a place between the Troades and the Helen*. The 
trochaic tetrameters, 1204-1233, are evidence of a compara- 
tively late composition, occurring as they do in nine plays 
of which six are known and the rest are believed to be of 
late date. Further the extended use of dochmiacs mixed with 
other metres, particularly the “enoplics”, is emphasized by 
Wilamowitz as a characteristic of the later plays*. “ Der Her- 
akles hat nur die enoplischen dochmien in sehr breiter aus- 
dehung angewandt, die drei letzten gesangnummern apne 
ihnen ganz an, ausserdem finden sie sich in Andromache (825- 
65), Troerinnen (241-91), Ion (762-811 : 1445-1509), Helena 
(628-77), Iphig. Taur. (827-99), Phcenissen (103-192), 
Orestes (166-208, 1246-1310, 1353-65), Bakchen (1017-28 ; 
1153-99).”” That the verbal style of the play does not show 
the exaggerated mannerisms that are in evidence in most of the 


1 Bruhn, E., Iphigenie auf Tauris, 1874, p. 16; Wilamowitz, Herakles, 
1895, I, pp. 148 ff. 

*Rumpel, op. cit., p. 467. 

8 Wilamowitz, Herakles, I, p. 147. 





90 


later plays is due to the care which the poet has taken in its 
composition. Repetitions are used with moderation. The 
richness of poetical vocabulary, especially in the nature epithets, 
is characteristic of the later style. 

In Frogs, 1282 ff., there is a quotation from the play : 


Eur. Πέλοψ ὁ Ταντάλειοο εἰς Πῖσαν μολὼν 
θοαῖσιν ἵπποις ---- Asch. ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν. 


Roscher finds an early terminus ante quem for the Iphigenia 
in lines 46 ff. of the Acharnians, on which the scholiast Says : 

Κελεοῦ yap καὶ Τριπτολέμου. ταῦτα δὲ λέγει ἐν raid ιᾷ, σκώπτων 
τὸν Εὐριπίδην, ἀεὶ ἡδέως ἀπαγγέλλοντα τὰ γένη ἐν ἄλλοις τε καὶ 
κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς τῆς ἐν Ταύροις ᾿Ιφιγενείας. 

Roscher says’: “ Die taurische Iphigenia, die 280 [ Auflos- 
ungen] ziihlt und desshalb von Zirndorfer in das Jahr 414 
gesetzt wird, muss doch schon im Jahre 425 bekannt gewesen 
sein, da in den Acharnern Anspielungen darauf vorkommen. 
(Arist. Acharn., 47 Schol.)”. There is certainly a close re- 
semblance between the speech of Amphitheos, Ach. lines 44-50, 
and the beginning of the prologue of the Tauric Iphigenia : 


ἀλλ᾽ ἀθάνατος. ὁ yap ᾿Αμφίθεος Δήμητρος ἣν 
καὶ Τριπτολέμου" τούτου δὲ Κελεὸς γίγνεται, 
γαμεῖ δὲ Κελεὸς Φαιναρέτην, τήθην ἐμήν, 

ἐξ ἧς Λυκῖνος ἐγένετ᾽- ἐκ τούτου δ᾽ ἐγὼ 
ἀθάνατός εἰμ᾽.2 


Compare the beginning of the Iphigenia : 


Πέλοψ ὁ Ταντάλειος ἐς Πῖσαν μολὼν 
»“" iA » / Lal / 
θοαῖσιν ἵπποις Οἰνομάου γαμεῖ κόρην, 
ἐξ ἧς ᾿Ατρεὺς ἔβλαστεν: ᾿Ατρέως δὲ παῖς 
Μενέλαος ᾿Αγαμέμνων te τοῦ δ᾽ ἔφυν ἐγώ. 


1 Roscher, op. cit., p. 534. 
2 Ar. Ach., 47. 





97 


The resemblance between the passages is verbally closer than 
between the Aristophanic passage and any other extant prologue 
of Euripides. It is not, however, so close as to imply actual 
quotation, and the same sort of genealogy with the same vocab- 
ulary appears in the Heracles, the Ion, the Pheenisse, and the 
Orestes. Since all the other indications are for a late date for 
this play, and since the coincidence of expression here can very 
well have been accidental, it must be so regarded ; therefore 
lines 47 ff. of the Archarnians are not of significance in fixing 
the date of the Tauric Iphigenia. 

The statement of the scholiast in this connection is worth 
no more than the scholia on Wasps, line 1326: aveye, πάρεχε: 
ἐκ Tpwadwv Εὐριπίδου, οὗ Κασάνδρα φησίν: x. τ. Δ... or that on 
Birds, line 414, where the verse is said to be ἐκ τῶν μηδέπω 
διδαχθεισῶν Φοινισσῶν, where the statement contradicts itself?. 

The Frogs, then, appears to offer the only Aristophanic limit 
for the play that has been as yet discovered. A limit seven 
years earlier can be set by, a play of Euripides’s own composi- 
tion, the Helen. 

Schroeder points out in detail the remarkable likeness in 
plot and language between the Iphigenia and the Helen*» He 
gives the plot of the two dramas as follows: “Femina a bar- 
baro rege exteris viris infesto procul a patria invita retine- 
tur : que cum iam de salute desperet, propinquum amicissimum 
obiisse suspicata, hic subito comparet : atque postquam paulis- 
per quomodo perniciem effugerent deliberaverunt, rege callide 
decepto fuga salutem petunt a sociis in spelunca ore abditis 
adiuti. Denique cum fuga nuntiata rex eos iam persecuturus sit 
[sic, but cf. Hel., lines 1624 ff], comparet deus qui a rege 
postulat ut deorum voluntatem secutus hostes persequi desistat’”’. 

Schroeder concludes that the Tauric Iphigenia and the Helen 


' Rutherford, Scholia Aristophanica, II, p. 431. 

? Dindorf, Adnott. ad Aristoph., III, II, p. 602. 

* Schroeder, De iteratis apud Tragicos Grecos, pp. 88 ff. Cf. also Firnhaber, 
Die Verdichtigungen Euripideischer Verse, Leipzig, 1860, p. 21, cited by 
Von Premerstein, Philologus, 1896, p. 642. 





98 


were composed about the same time. This opinion had been 
previously expressed by Wilamowitz: “aliquo modo cogitari 
potest cum Helena coniunctam Iphigeniam in sczenam venire ” !. 

Bruhn in the introduction to his edition of the play argues 
for the priority of the Iphigenia on the ground that the motives 
common to both plays adduced by Schroeder are elaborated in 
the Helen, whereas, they appear in a much simpler form in the 
Iphigenia. He mentions three points in each play, which he 
compares in arguing “dass das stiirker gewiirzte Gericht das- 
jenige war, welches der Dichter zum zweitenmal auftrug ”. These 
points are the character of Thoas and Theoclymenus, the 
ἀμφιβολία of Iphigenia and Helen in the scenes with Thoas and 
Theoclymenus, and the two κομμοί [sic], that between Iphigenia 
and Orestes and that between Helen and Menelaus. Of the first 
he says: “ Thoas ist der blutdiirstige und dabei beschriinkte 
Barbar, der nicht abwarten kann bis die Opfer der Giéttin 
gefallen sind (1153), der die entflohenen von Felsen herabstiir- 
zen oder pfihlen will (1429), der sich anderseits von der schlauen 
Hellenin ahnungslos beriicken lisst und lippisch genug ist, 
wirmere Gefiihle fiir sich bei ihr vorauszusetzen [sic] (1213) ”. 
He points out that in Theoclymenus there is an exaggeration 
of the type found in Thoas. He compares the irony, or double 
meaning, used by Iphigenia in her words in deceiving Thoas 
with that of Helen as she deceives Theoclymenus and shows 
the greater elaboration of that employed by Helen. Further 
he shows that in the κομμός [sic] of the Helen there is a much 
greater elaboration in the matter of repetitions ridiculed by 
Aristophanes, and argues that Euripides in composing the 
scene in the Helen was striving to outdo the corresponding pas- 
sage of the Iphigenia. In a paper by Professor W. N. Bates, 
published in the Proceedings of the American Philological 
Association for 1901, pp. exxii ff, the priority of the Iphigenia 
is advocated with substantially the same arguments as those of 
Schroeder and Bruhn. A list of parallel passages from two of 


1 Wil., An. Eur., p. 153. 


99 


the plays is there given. Bruhn’s statement of the case for 
the priority of the Iphigenia is excellent, but it appears to me 
that it can be carried further, and that the unmistakable de- 
pendence of the Helen on the other play for much that is new 
and striking in its plot can be demonstrated. 

The prologue of the Iphigenia contains two motives belong- 
ing to the Iphigenia myth, in all probability introduced by 
Euripides gratuitously into his Helen, and suggested by his use 
of them in the Iphigenia. 

The first of these is the cloud-motive in the Iphigenia, lines 
27-30, the Helen, lines 44-45 : 


I. T. ἀλλ᾽ ἐξέκλεψεν ἔλαφον ἀντιδοῦσά pov 
ἼΑρτεμις ᾿Αχαιοῖς, διὰ δὲ λαμπρὸν αἰθέρα 
πέμψασα μ᾽ εἰς τήνδ᾽ ᾧκισεν Ταύρων χθόνα. 


Helen. λαβὼν δ᾽ μ᾽ Ἑρμῆς ἐν πτυχαῖσιν αἰθέρος 
νεφέλῃ καλύψας κ. τ. λ. 


This trait undoubtedly belonged to the story of the substitu- 
tion of the hind for Iphigenia and her carrying away by 
Artemis, a story which Euripides found ready to his hand. It 
is true that the cloud is not expressly mentioned in the one 
account taken from an earlier source which we possess, namely 
the résumé of the story as told in the Cypria, found in Proclus εἰ 
ἼΑρτεμις δὲ αὐτὴν ἐξαρπάσασα eis Tavpous μετακομίζξει καὶ ἀθάν- 
ατον ποιεῖ" ἔλαφον δὲ ἀντὶ τῆς κόρης παρίστησι τῷ βωμῷ. There 
can be no doubt, however, that Iphigenia was snatched away in a 
cloud which made her invisible, as a cloud is a regular concomit- 
ant of such situations. Cf. Od. VII, 40 ff., Ain., I, 411 ff. 
It does not appear that there was any such episode in the 
story of the phantom Helen. According to some authorities 
Stesichorus in his famous palinode had Helen remain all the 
while in Sparta: καὶ τὸν μὲν Στησίχορον ἐν τῇ ὕστερον ὠδῃ 


1 Proclus Grammaticus, 445, in Homeri Carmina et Cycli Epici Reliquiz, 
Didot, Paris, 1844. 





100 


λέγειν ὅτι τὸ παράπαν οὐδὲ πλεύσειεν ἡ Ἑλένη iovdaydce'. Or 
if Herodotus follows Stesichorus in his account, the latter repre- 
sents her as having been carried off by Paris, but driven by 
storms to Egypt: ᾿Αλέξανδρον ἀρπάσαντα “Ἑλένην ἐκ Σπάρτης 
ἀποπλέειν ἐς τήν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ μιν ὡς ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ Αἰγαίῳ ἐξῶσται 
ἄνεμοι ἐκβάλλουσι ἐς τὸ Αἰγύπτιον πέλαγος" ἐνθεῦτεν δέ--- οὐ 
γὰρ ἀνίει τὰ πνεύματα --- ἀπικνέεται ἐς Αἴγυπτον κ. τ. r.2, 

It would seem that Euripides in order to transport Helen 
innocently to Egypt has woven into the plot of his Helen an 
incident that was an integral part of the material of his earlier 
play. It is true that von Premerstein maintains that Euripides 
derived this episode from Stesichorus himself. Cf. p. 646.° 
“ Nach der Palinodie des Stesichorus hat Alexandros nicht die 
Helene, sondern ein tiiuschendes Trugbild (εἴδωλον) nach Troia 
entfiihrt (ausdriickliche Zeugnisse 8. 649: Apollodor S. 642: 
vgl. auch Lycophron Κ΄, 643). Die wirkliche Helena wird von 
Hermes (Apollodor, ebenso Euripides, vgl. S. 635 ff.), auf 
Zeus’ Rathschluss heimlich entriickt’’, ete. 

The citation from Apollodorus, however, by no means points 
conclusively to Stesichorus. The use of ἔνιοι and κατά τινας 
in this passage shows a discrimination in the use of authorities 
which von Premerstein appears to overlook.t ἔνιοι δέ φασιν 
᾿Ἑλένην μὲν ὑπὸ Ἑρμοῦ κατὰ βούλησιν Διὸς κομισθῆναι κλαπεῖσαν 
εἰς Αἴγυπτον καὶ δοθεῖσαν ἸΠ]Πρωτεῖ τῷ βασιλεῖ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων 
φυλάττειν, ᾿Αλέξανδρον δὲ παραγενέσθαι εἰς Τροίαν πεποιημένον 
ἐκ νεφῶν εἴδωλον ἔχοντα. Μενέλαος πέντε ναῦς τὰς ὅλας ἔχων 
μεθ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ πολλὰς χώρας παραμείψας πολλὰ συναθροίζει χρή- 
ματα καὶ κατά τινας εὑρίσκεται παρὰ Πρωτεῖ τῷ τῶν ᾿Αιγυπτίων 
βασιλεῖ “Ἑλένη, μέχρι τότε εἴδωλον ἐκ νεφῶν ἐσχηκότος τοῦ 
Μενελάου: ὀκτὼ δὲ πλανηθεὶς ἔτη κατέπλευσεν εἰς Μυκήνας (sic) °, 

! Dion Chrysostom, XI, 162 A. 

2Hat. I, 112. 


*Von Premerstein, A., Ueber der Mythos in Euripides’s Helen, Philologus, 
1896, pp. 634 ff. 


*Mythographi gr., ed. Wagner, I, p. 188. 
5 Epitome Vaticana, pp. 226 ff. 


101 


With the exception of the number of the ships everything 
that is told here without the restriction of ἔνιοι or κατά τινας 
goes back to the fourth book of the Odyssey. The rest can be 
referred to Euripides as well as to Stesichorus. [ἢ view of the 
almost universal ascription in antiquity of the invention of the 
εἴδωλον of Helen to Stesichorus, it seems not improbable in the 
absence of any countervailing evidence that the ultimate source 
of Herodotus’s account of Helen’s stay in Egypt was Stesicho- 
rus. If that is the case —and none of the passages adduced by 
von Premerstein disproves it — the invention of the episode of 
the carrying away of Helen by Hermes is due to Euripides, and 
it was then evidently suggested by the similar motive in his 
Iphigenia. This first point admits of dispute, in view of the 
question how far Euripides invented and how far he followed 
Stesichorus in his treatment of the phantom Helen. The second 
point, however, is indisputable. The originality of the Iphigenia 
is absolutely clear. This is the similarity of I. T., vv. 37-40: 


/ ‘a \ \ / 
θύω yap ὄντος τοῦ νόμου καὶ πρὶν πόλει 


ὅς ἂν κατέλθῃ τήνδε γῆν “ἕλλην ἀνήρ, 
and Helen, line 154: 

κτείνει yap “EXAnv’ ὅντιν᾽ ἂν λάβῃ ξένον, 
and Helen, lines 441-- 442 : 


ἢ κατθανῇ 
f 
Ἕλλην πεφυκώς, οἷσιν οὐκ ἐπιστροφαί. 


This is a part of the story of the Iphigenia imported into the 
Helen. For the originality of the Iphigenia, see Herodotus, 
IV, 103: θύουσι μὲν τῇ παρθένῳ τούς τε ναναγοὺς Kal τοὺς ἂν 
λάβωσιν “Ἑλλήνων τρόπῳ τοιῷδε, κ. τ. λ. 

That this likeness should exist between two plays so alike 
throughout and not have come from one to the other is un- 
thinkable. Can any doubt remain which contained the mo- 














102 


tive first, when that motive is seen to be part of the myth in 
one play and a gratuitous invention in the other? 

There is much in the workmanship of the Helen which 
shows “ Flickarbeit”, the source of which may be traced to the 
Iphigenia. In the first scene of the Helen immediately follow- 
ing the prologue Helen questions Teucer about Troy and the 
fate of the Greek heroes in a strain similar to that of I. T., lines 
517 ff., where Iphigenia, in the words of Orestes, 

ὡς “Ἑλληνικῶς ἀνήρεθ᾽ ἡμᾶς τούς τ᾽ év’ Ἰλίῳ πόνους 
νόστον τ᾽ ᾿Αχαιῶν κ. τ. λ. 


The parallelism between the two passages is clear. The 
Iphigenia is evidently the original, inasmuch as the conversa- 
tion is the natural development of the situation, advancing the 
action toward the περιπέτεια and carried on between the prin- 
cipal personages of the drama. In the Helen the scene is in- 
troduced merely to give Helen the preliminary information 
which she requires as material for her laments to the chorus. 
It is by no means essential to the development of the plot, and 
Teucer is a perfunctory character who disappears completely 
from the play at the end of this scene. 

The character of Theonoé again is as perfunctory as that of 
Teucer. She is not necessary to the plot, and is merely a part 
of the machinery of the play. Helen goes off the stage to con- 
sult her about the safety of Menelaus and so leaves the stage 
free for Menelaus’s oncoming. That the fate of Helen and 
Menelaus rests partly with her gives occasion for two long 
argumentative speeches on the part of Helen and Menelaus, 
but does not advance the plot or add to it. On the contrary 
she delays the real περιπέτεια, which comes from Helen’s suc- 
cessful tricking of Theoclymenus. She is not a convincing 
character, and one feels that she could have warned her brother 
of Menelaus’s coming, had her gift of prophecy been what it 
should have been. She is indeed a faint reflex of the priestess 
Iphigenia in the other play. It is this influence that has so 


103 


transformed her charming prototype, the daughter of Proteus, 
Eidothoé, of the Odyssey. 

The recognition scenes, as has often been noted, are parallel. 
The scene in the Helen reads like a travesty of the noble pas- 
sages in the Iphigenia. In the one Iphigenia is sceptical : 


rf “ / 
Edy’, οὐ δικαίως τῆς θεοῦ τὴν πρόσπολον 
\ / / 
χραίνεις ἀθίκτοις περιβαλὼν πέπλοις χέρα. 


in the other Menelaus : 
ποίας δάμαρτος ; μὴ θίγῃς ἐμῶν πέπλων. 


Bruhn has pointed out the exaggeration of the succeeding scene 
in the Helen compared with that in the Iphigenia, while the 
resemblance is undoubted. . 

The device by which escape is effected is much simpler and 
more natural in the Iphigenia than in the Helen. That the 
image of the goddess defiled by the touch of impure hands 
should be cleansed by a holy lustration in the sea 1s reasonable, 
and the tale would inevitably command the respect of Thoas, 
who — with Tauric limitations —is god-fearing. It isa much 
wilder flight of fancy to suppose that the jealous and suspicious 
Theoclymenus, in spite of his fear and hatred of Greeks, would 
be so guileless as to allow one of the feared and hated race to 
take Helen out of sight of land, in a swift-sailing Phoenician 
ship, with all the equipment necessary ~ defense and for a 
voyage, in order to perform the ἐνάλια κτερίσματα of Menelaus. 
The procedure in the Iphigenia is plausible ; it 1s forced and 
overdone in the Helen. . 

The Iphigenia is admirable in all its technique, and even 
the much maligned deus ex machina at the end is perfectly 
well-motived. Athena is by no means superfluous: she has 
much to do. She must show to Thoas that the hand of the 
gods is in all that has passed, she must rescue the captured 
Greek maidens, and before all, in this Attic play, she must 
ordain the manner and place of the new ceremonies of Artemis 








104 


at Hale and Brauron. The play, which owes its inception to 
Attic legend and religious customs, would have been incomplete 


without this message of Athena. In the Helen there is noth- 
ing for the Dioscuri to do, since Menelaus and Helen have 
already effected their escape, except to defend the shadowy 
Theonoé from her brother’s wrath. Their speech closely re- 
sembles that of Athena and is plainly modelled on it. Helen 
is to be a goddess at the island Helene as Iphigenia is to be a 
priestess at Brauron. Menelaus is provided for as is Orestes 
but in neither case in the Helen was any further word about its 
characters necessary. Their later fate is mentioned only to 
give the Dioscuri something to say. There can be no doubt 
which speech is original. The answer of Thoas is in character. 
He yields to the new order of things because the goddess tells 
him to, though he was bent on slaying the δυσσεβεῖς until he 
heard the comments of Athena. He is represented as having 
a serious belief in the bloody rites of his Tauric goddess and as 
being εὐσεβής after his kind. The ineptitude of the speech of 
Theoclymenus, on the other hand, has led Nauck and van Her- 
werden ' to bracket the lines. But this procedure does not seem 
justifiable, as there was really nothing left for Theoclymenus to 
say in reply to the supererogatory Dioscuri except to promise 
to give up his wrath against Helen and Theonoé and to pay 
some compliments to the sister of the dei ex machina, however 
much these may have belied his real feelings. What Flagg 
says with reference to the appearance of Athena in the Iphige- 
nia is in point here?: “A deus ex machina for the sake of 
Thoas and the chorus would have seemed highly crude and 
forced”. In the Helen it is to save Theonoé, who has so slight 
a share in the interest of the play, that they intervene. 
To recapitulate, then, the Helen has borrowed from the 
Iphigenia most probably the cloud-motive, certainly that of 
the putting to death of Greeks who land on the hostile shore, 


‘Van Herwerden, Helena, 1875. 
* Flagg, I., Iphigenia among the Taurians, Boston, 1891, Introd., p. 29. 


105 


and the trick by which the barbarian king is led to let his 
captives escape in the belief that they are performing sacred 
rites. 

Theonoé, the θεσπιῳδὸς κόρη, is an unnecessary character par- 
tially suggested by Iphigenia. Teucer is another character 
that is introduced merely to help out the mechanism of the play 
in a scene modelled on a notable scene of the Iphigenia. The- 
oclymenus, as Bruhn has noted, is an exaggerated Thoas. The 
recognition-scene in the Helen is almost a travesty of the noble 
scene in the Iphigenia. The close of the Helen is itself motive- 
less, and the Dioscuri would never have appeared but for the 
well-motived appearance of Athena in the Iphigenia. 

A comparison of these themes of the two plays answers, in 
my judgment, the question which Flagg puts: “ We should 
really be glad to know whether the Iphigenia came before or 
after the Helen. Did a happy inspiration and successful spon- 
taneous effort lead to an inferior attempt on the same lines? 
Or was Euripides able, after giving himself free rein in the 
semi-comic Helen, to find in it a model for such restraint and 
single-mindedness as were needed to produce a Tauric Iphi- 
genia?”', The Tauric Iphigenia surely preceded the Helen. 
We may take the appearance of that play then as our terminus 
ante quem for the Iphigenia. A terminus post quem is not so 
easily found. Bergk finds it in the Electra, which he places 
immediately after the Troades. His argument 15 this:’ 
“Wenn nun in der Elektra, deren Auffiihrung wir Ol. 91, 2 
ansetzten, am Schlusse auf die Freisprechung von Orestes vor 
dem Gerichte des Areopags und seine Ansiedelung in Arkadien 
hingewiesen wird, ohne der weiteren Verfolgung der Erinnyen 
und der Fahrt des Orestes zu den Tauren zu gedenken, so 
muss die Iphigenia spiiter gedichtet sein”. But the Orestes 
likewise has no Tauric episode and, as Bruhn points out, is 
not consistent in the closing prophecy of Apollo with the 


1Tbid., Introd., p. 40. 
?Griechische Litteratur-Geschichte, iii, p. 552. 





106 


undoubtedly earlier plays, the Electra and the Andromache '. 
Neither Sophocles nor Euripides bound himself to one form 
of myth to be followed absolutely in all the plays dealing with 
the same characters. The divergence in the myth would, 
however, make it out of the question to assume that the 
Iphigenia was brought out in same trilogy as the Electra. 
That play in all probability was brought out in the spring of 
413. The very great similarity between the Iphigenia and 
of the Helen bring these plays near together in point of date. 
But this very similarity, as Bergk remarks, would prevent 
their belonging to the same set of dramas. The Electra must 
lie between them. 

Orestes had been introduced by Euripides into his Androm- 
ache of the year 417, but only as “Nebenfigur”*. That a 
“ Hauptrolle” is assigned to him in the Iphigenia, as well as in 
the Electra and the Orestes, points to a later date than 417 for 
the Iphigenia. The question of the date of the Ion enters into 
the question of a terminus post quem for the Iphigenia. The 
Ton has also 412 for its terminus ante quem. I believe that in 
the two romantic pieces, which evidently belong to the same 
period, an advance in technique in the ἀναγνώρισις is evident in 
the Iphigenia, marking it as later in composition. 

The Andromache, the Ion, and the Tauric Iphigenia are 
characterized by an extreme bitterness toward the Delphic 
oracle, which suggests that they belong to the same time. The 
Andromache I place without hesitation in the year 417; the 
Ion may have come the next year; next came the Trojan 
trilogy, and the year 414 is left for the Iphigenia. Here 
Zirndorfer places it for metrical reasons, which of course can- 
not date minutely, but are valuable, when due care is exer- 
cised, in indicating the period of composition. 

On the other hand, von Premerstein‘ finds in the Ion, as 


1 Bruhn, Einleitung, p. 16. 
2P. 552. 

3See also Bergk, pp. 552 ff. 
* Philologus, 55, p. 653. 


107 


well as in the Helen, “ein Musterbeispiel eines romantischen 
Intriguenstiickes’’ and holds that the Iphigenia, earlier than 
these two, “treads the less intricate paths of the older trag- 
edy”. It may be said, however, that some practice in the 
making of romantic plots is implied in the perfection of the 
Tauric Iphigenia, and its comparative lack of intricacy involves 
fewer ἄλογα and evinces more careful workmanship. The Ion 
appears to be the earliest of the romantic plays of Euripides 
which we possess ; the Iphigenia among the Taurians shows an 
advance in technique which brings it near perfection’; the 
Electra is an attempt to cast in the new romantic and human- 
istic form the old and familiar myth already treated by /s- 
chylus and Sophocles ; the Helen with a romantic plot closely 
similar to that of the Iphigenia shows in some respects an ad- 
vance in workmanship’, although as a whole it is a mechanically 
constructed play in which the sutures are evident. 

The most probable year for the Iphigenia, which evidently 
belongs to this group of plays, appears to be 414. 


THE ELECTRA. 

The Electra has been variously dated from 425 to 410. But 
by far the greater number of recent critics hold that the play 
was brought out in the spring of 413. 

An argument for the year 425 is given by Zielinski as fol- 
lows*: “Nun war es im Frihjahr 425, als unter Sophocles und 
Eurymedon 40 Schiffe nach Sicilien abgingen, unterdessen 
hatten die Syrakusaner durch Verrat sich Messanas bemach- 
tigt, das bis dahin [sic] den Athenern freundlich gesinnt war. 
Bei keiner zweiten Gelegenheit kénnten die Verse der Dios- 


kuren El. 1347 ff., 
νὼ δ᾽ ἐπὶ πόντον Σικελὸν σπουδῇ, 


1Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, xvi. 

2Cf. Masqueray, pp. 202 ff. 

3 Zielinski, Th., Gliederung der attischen Komédie, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 
106-7. 





108 


ihrer Wirkung gewisser sein. Ich méchte daher die Tetralogie 
Elektra, Melanippe II, Andromeda, und Helena im Jahre 425, 
die Kalligenia des Aristophanes in die grossen Dionysien 424 
datieren ”’. 

The language of the Dioscuri, however, is much more in 
point, if their words be referred to the expedition of 413. In 
line 1350: 


- \ r 
τοις μὲν μυσαροῖς οὐκ ἐπαρήγομεν, 


the expression μυσαροῖς, “defiled”, impuris, could hardly be 
applied to the Syracusans for the entirely defensible piece of 
strategy by which they gained Messene, which, as Zielinski fails 
to mention, had had its friendly sentiments toward Athens forced 
upon it (at the sword’s point) in the Athenian attack on it in 
the summer of 4261. These had, therefore, been of short 
duration. As for the Helen and the Andromeda, which also 
Zielinski places in this year, their dates are established by 
trustworthy tradition ; and, as Wilamowitz says in another con- 
nection, “an urkundlichen Daten riittelt nur die Willkiir”’. 

Haupt’s arguments” for the year 425 are no more convine- 
ing. He sees parodies of the Electra in the Clouds and the 
Birds. These, however, are very far from being cogent and 
cannot weigh at all against the strong reasons for putting the 
Electra much later. The lines in question are : 


El. 175 ff.: 


> > 5» ἢ 
οὐκ ἐπ΄ ἀγλαΐαις, φίλαι, 


\ >Q9 39 \ 
θυμὸν οὐδ᾽ ἐπὶ χρυσέοις ὅρμοις ἐκπεπόταμαι, 


Clouds 319: 


ἡ ψυχή μου πεπότηται, 
Birds, 


> “ Lal 
ἀνεπτερῶσθαι καὶ πεποτῆσθαι τὰς φρένας. 


1Thue., IV, 1; III, 90. 


* Haupt, R., Zeitschrift fiir die oesterreichischen Gymnasien, 1873, pp. 660- 
669, cited by Keene, Electra, pp. xxxvi ff. 





109 


Keene! points out the usualness of this metaphor. Indeed, 
ἀνεπτερωμένοι is used even by Xenophon, and the figure is 
Sophoclean as well : 


Ai., line 693: περιχαρὴς δ᾽ ἀνεπτόμαν, 
Ant., line 1307 : ἀνέπταν φόβῳ 


In his article on Euripides in the Encyclopedia Britannica 
Professor Jebb finds the play should be dated “shortly before 
the Orestes, which in many respects it much resembles : perhaps 
in or about the year 410 B. C.?”. This view, which has nothing 
to commend it, is abandoned by Jebb in his edition of the 
Sophoclean Electra, in which he says of the Euripidean Electra 
that its “ probable date is 413 B. C.’’’. 

Nauck sets aside the epilogue, vv. 1233-1359, as “‘ Euripide 
indignos‘”. This would remove the one distinct reference in 
the play by which it has been dated. This epilogue, however, 
is in Euripides’s style, and Jebb well says of it®: “It is in this 
closing scene, where the Dioscuri are cross-examined, that the 
drift of Euripides is most patent”. This epilogue is essential 
to the Euripidean conception of the plot of the Electra and in- 
volves no contradictions such as would lead to a rejection of it. 
This definite reference to the Sicilian waters is also an indica- 
tion of its genuineness, as it is not the sort of touch that a 
forger or reviser would be likely to add. 

Otfried Miiller® appears to have been the first to call atten- 
tion to these verses in their significance for the date. He says 
that by these verses the Electra is obviously assigned to the 
period of the Sicilian expedition, and that there is possibly a 

reference to the charge of impiety under which Alcibiades 
lay at the time of sailing. Therefore he dates the play in 415. 


1 Keene, Euripides’s Electra, 1893, p. xxxvii. 
2Encycl. Brit., 1878, VIII, p. 677. 

3 Jebb, Sophocles, Electra, 1894, p. 101. 

‘ Nauck, Euripides, I, p. lxxv (1889). 

5 Jebb, Electra of Sophocles, p. 11. 

6 Miiller and Donaldson, Greek Literature, I, p. 493. 








110 


But the tone of the passage is not suited to that year with its 
magnificent and overpowering armament. The Dioscuri speak 
of χαλεπῶν μόχθων from which they will release the pious and 
upright. This would suit the condition of affairs described in 
the letter of Nicias, in which he tells of the hardships by which 
the Athenian forces are encompassed and of his own ill health’. 
It is reasonable to suppose that these verses were written after 
that dignified and impressive letter had been read? in an as- 
sembly of the Athenian people, and the second fleet had been 
in consequence despatched to Sicily*. The invasion of Attica 
by the Spartans at the very beginning of spring in 413 and the 
fortification of Decelea would give point to the expression τοῖς 
μυσαροῖς in reference to Alcibiades, who was in a threefold 
manner accursed, being an Alemeonid, being under accusation 
for the desecration of the Mysteries and the mutilation of the 
Herme, and being a traitor instructing his country’s enemies 
where best to strike her. Bergk ‘ puts the Electra immediately 
after the Trojan trilogy in the year 424, “als die Athener neue 
Verstirkungen nach Sicilien absandten”. But that expedition, 
consisting of two hundred and fifty knights and thirty mounted 
archers,’ and sent for not at a time of stress, but after a victory, 
would hardly justify the language of the Dioscuri®, The situ- 
ation in the spring of 413 is certainly dramatically and histor- 
ically more in keeping with the feeling of these verses of the 
epilogue. Bergk apparently chooses the year 414 in order to 
put the Tauric Iphigenia in 413, inasmuch as he desires to 
bring that play close to the Helen. 

The date 413 has been adopted by those who have most 
recently given an expression of opinion, Weil, Kaibel, Wilamo- 
witz, Bruhn, Jebb, Haigh, and others. The fact that this play 

1Thuc., VII, 11-15. 

?Ibid., 16. 

STbid, 19. 

‘Bergk, T., Griech. Lit., III, p. 551. 


>Thuc., VI, 94. 
6 Tbid., 71. 




















111 


as compared with the other plays of its period shows something 
of restraint in its verbal and metrical style may be due to the 
conscious emulation of Euripides in writing on the theme 
recently handled by Sophocles. 

The palpable criticism of the art of 7Eschylus in the matter 
of ἀναγνώρισις appears to me of great weight in assigning the 
Electra a place with the group of dramas, consisting of Ion, 
Iphigenia among the Taurians, Helen, in which ἀναγνώρισις 
plays so large a part’. In discussing the date of the Tauric 
Iphigenia, I have noted the fact that the ἀναγνώρισις in the Ion 
is of the kind recommended as least artistic by Aristotle, whereas 
that in the Iphigenia is made up of two elements, one men- 
tioned as an advance on the tokens brought, as in the Ion, and 
the other praised as the best possible, where “the startling dis- ᾿ 
covery is made by natural means”. And so in the Helen, granted 
the plot of the phantom Helen, the ἀναγνώρισις of the real Helen 
is ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν πραγμάτων and δι᾽ εἰκότων. Sophocles uses the 
conventional signet-ring. Euripides, who has used such tokens 
in his Ion, has now left them far behind him and uses the scar 
of a wound received in play in company with Electra in Ore- 
stes’s boyhood. This, too, comes under the formal recognitions 
condemned by Aristotle, but is an advance on the external 
tokens. Euripides has evidently reached in the Electra a 
point of technique in ἀναγνώρισις on which he prides himself. 
This, then, is in favor of putting the Electra after the Tauric 
Iphigenia, in which he had achieved a triumph in this 
respect. 

The question of the relation of the Electra of Euripides to 
the Electra of Sophocles has been much discussed, especially 
since the appearance of Wilamowitz’s article “ Die beiden Elek- 
tren” *, The literature of the subject since the appearance of 
Wilamowitz’s discussion is given by Steiger, Philologus 56, 
1897.° With the exception of Bruhn hardly any notable critic 


1 Aristotle, Poetics, Chap. xi. 
2 Wilamowitz, Hermes, 18, 1888. 
*Steiger, H., pp. 561-600 : Warum schrieb Euripides seine Electra? 





112 


has adopted the view advocated by Wilamowitz, which is that 
the Electra of Sophocles is a protest against the Electra of 
Euripides. According to Wilamowitz Sophocles felt that 
Euripides had dealt with the myth, which Sophocles regarded 
as a sacred heritage, entrusted to him by the Muse, in a manner 
frivolous and blasphemous, the absolute negation of the Sopho- 
clean art. He therefore came forward to slay his enemy with 
his own weapons, that is, with an Electra. So he returns to 
the epic point of view, ignoring the ethical problem, and makes 
the murder of a mother appear natural as a duty and laudable 
as a heroic deed. Professor Jebb’s comment on this is very ap- 
posite : “ Assume for a moment that the Euripidean Electra was 
the earlier. Then surely when Euripides had just been renewing 
the impression left by Aschylus, — that matricide, though 
enjoined by a god, brings a fearful stain, — Sophocles would 
have chosen a peculiarly unfortunate moment for inviting 
Athenians to admire the unruffled equanimity of his Orestes.”’, 
Wilamowitz’s theory, interesting as it is, does not convince ; 
for it is at least as easy to suppose that Euripides wrote his 
Electra to protest against the primitive morality of Sophocles’s 
play as to suppose that Sophocles wrote his Electra to protest 
against the modernizing art of the Euripidean play. And this 
is the theory of Jebb and Steiger. Indeed the latter believes 
that Euripides has consciously caricatured the Electra of Sopho- 
cles in the depiction of his Electra, and has intended to parody 
the myth of the heroine Electra. 

Steiger sees in the Electra of Euripides a “Teufelin ”! who 
goes far beyond Lady Macbeth and in whom every spark of 
humanity is quenched. Wilamowitz and Kaibel have equally 
strong words of denunciation for the character of the Euripi- 
dean Electra, although they are not so clear in assigning a 
motive for Euripides’s drawing of the character. This view 
appears to me entirely perverse. Euripides has not intended 
to represent in Electra a fiend, but a human being driven to 

1Op. cit., p. 573. 








113 


inhuman deeds for which bitter remorse is at once felt. Some 
of the criticisms made on her acts are trivial and absurd and 
read into Euripides’s conception what he neither said or in- 
tended. Euripides meant that her deed should shock us, but 
did not intend here any more than in his Andromache, who is 
equally artificial and repellent, to paint a repugnant character. 
But both a priori and from the contents of the two plays the 
position of Jebb and Steiger appears more reasonable than that 
of Wilamowitz, and the close comparison of the plays which has 
been made from various points of view since the discussion was 
started by the appearance of Wilamowitz’s article (by which he 
deemed the question settled forever, cf. “ich kenne keine In- 
stanz, welche gegen die vorgetragene Datirung zu sprechen auch 
nur scheinen kénnte”') has brought out the priority of the 
Sophoclean play. ~ 
Ribbeck? has pointed out criticisms of Sophocles’s play in 
the Electra of Euripides. Euripides sees the improbability of 
the murder of Clytemnestra and A%gisthus in their palace. 
He therefore motives the absence of Agisthus and Clyte- 
mnestra from the palace and their presence in a place where they 
could be easily overcome. And throughout the Euripidean 
drama there is a motiving of the situations where the Sopho- 
clean technique was faulty : for example, the appearance of the 
chorus, the entrance of Orestes, and the meeting of Orestes and 
Electra with their victims. Ribbeck also points to a ridiculing 
of Sophocles in the Euripidean lines 
ἥκεις γὰρ οὐκ ἀχρεῖον ἕκπτλεθρον δραμὼν 
ἀγῶν᾽ ἐς οἰκους, ἀλλὰ πολέμιον κτανὼν 
Αἴγισθον 5. 
Cf. Sophocles, Electra, lines 680 ff. And again in 
ἥκω γὰρ οὐ λόγοισιν ἀλλ᾽ ἔργοις κτανὼν 
Αἴγισθον." 


1 Hermes, 18, p. 249. 
2 Ribbeck, O., Leipziger Studien, 1885. 
$Eur., El., vv, 883 ff. 
*Eur., El., 11, 883 ff. 





114 


Steiger * gives many other parallel passages where there is more 
or less open criticism of Sophocles in the Euripidean verses. 
Vahlen’ has shown with great detail the likenesses in the 
scenes between Clytemnestra and Electra and demonstrates 
thereby the priority of the Sophoclean drama, pointing out 
the dependence of the scene in the Euripidean Electra on the 
other and the better motiving of its arguments. Kaibel* com- 
pares striking passages throughout the plays which show a de- 
velopment and expansion of Sophoclean thoughts by Euripides. 
“ Bei Soph.”, he says, “ geht Elektra schlecht gekleidet und 
schlecht genihrt einher (191), bei Eur. hat sie einen schlichten 
Bauern heirathen miissen und fiihrt darum in harter Arbeit ein 
kiimmerlich iirmliches Leben ; so mangelt ihr schéne Kleidung 
und gute Nahrung von selbst. @schylus hat dergleichen 
Kleinmalerei nicht ; hat Soph. sie erfunden oder Euripides ? 
Die Keime fiir die breitere und zugleich grébere Malerei des 
Eur. finden sich alle schon bei Sophokles ; er kann der entleh- 
nende nicht sein.” Sophocles’s Electra, lines 267-274, is 
compared by Kaibel with Euripides’s Electra, lines 314-331, 
as evidence of the way in which Euripides endeavors to 
outdo Sophocles with the latter’s own material. He well 
cites the ὡς λέγουσιν as showing the dependence of Euripides 
upon Sophocles. Euripides is not “drawing the thing as 
he sees it”, but “von Hérensagen”’, as Kaibel says. Again 
he cites Soph., El., 341 and 364, comparing Eur., EL, 
332-935, with the remark, “ Das ist bei Soph. ganz individuell 
auf Chrysothemis zugeschnitten, wihrend bei Eurip. der Ge- 
danke eigentlich in der Luft schwebt”’ 

It seems hardly worth while to multiply examples. Others 


are given by Kaibel, and still more may be found passim 


throughout the plays. The Euripidean prologue furnishes many 
~ pia) I : 


illustrations of his expansion of Sophoclean themes. From 


1 Tbid., vv, 893 ο, op. cit., pp. 596 ff. 
2 Vahlen, Hermes, 37. 
*Kaibel, Elektra, 1896, p. 57. 


115 


Electra’s song at the beginning of the play Euripides * has 
evidently freely borrowed and enlarged. Cf. Soph., El., 97 
with Eur., 60; Soph., 99, and Eur., 160; Soph. 102, Eur., 
124; Soph., 107, with the expanded simile Eur., 151 ff. ; 
Soph., 191 with Eur., 184-5. 

The evidence is cumulative and it should need only a care- 
ful reading of the two plays to convince one of the priority 
of Sophocles’s Electra. The critics who have made this com- 
parison in detail are, with the exception of Wilamowitz, of 
the opinion that Euripides wrote his Electra after that of 
Sophocles *. Wilamowitz says: “ Lediglich aus dem Inhalt, 
aus der Poesie, heraus habe ich das Altersverhiltniss der Elek- 
tren bestimmt” *. He goes on, however, to make a search- 
ing examination of the metres of the Sophoclean Electra, which 
fully establishes the fact that that play is among the later works 
of Sophocles and shows Euripidean influence, as do all his later 
plays in the lyrical parts. This indicates not that the play is 
subsequent to that of Euripides, but that it did not precede it 
by many years. And from the polemic spirit of the Euripi- 
dean play one is inclined to conjecture that the offending Sopho- 
clean drama, which is the reason for the existence of the other, 
did not long antedate it. 


THE HELEN. 


The exact dating of the play depends upon the following 
scholia: Aristophanes, Frogs, 53 : 

τὴν ᾿Ανδρομέδαν : διὰ τί μὴ ἄλλο TL τῶν πρὸ ὀλίγου διδα- 
χθέντων καὶ καλῶν, ᾿ὙΨιπύλην, Φοινίσσας, ᾿Αντιόπην : ἡ δὲ 
᾿Ανδρομέδα ὀγδόῳ ἔτει προῆλθεν. 

Thesmophoriazuse, 1011 :* 

σημεῖον ὑπεδήλωσε Περσεὺς κ. τ. λ. πιθανῶς" συνδεδίδακται yap 
τῃ Ἑλένῃ. 

1 Soph., El., vv, 86 ff. 

2 Wil., Hermes, 18, p. 242. 


3 Hermes, 18, pp. 242 ff. 
‘ Rutherford, Schol. Ar., I, p. 289. 





116 


The date of the Frogs is given in the hypothesis to the play : 
, 405 
B. C. The Helen, then, together with the Andromeda was 
brought out in the spring of 412. 


ἐδιδάχθη ἐπὶ Καλλίου τοῦ μετὰ ᾿Αντιγένη, i. e., Ol. 93.3 


The parodies on these two plays in the Thesmophoriazuse 
of 411 are also of importance in fixing the date. That play, 
unlike the Lysistrata of the same year, which is entirely politi- 
cal, is a satire on the literary tendencies of the time'. It is 
evident from the play that the Helen and the Andromeda must 
have achieved great popularity ; for much of the play is given 
up to parodies of the two. Mnesilochus (v. 850) says that to 


bring Euripides to his rescue he will use one of his dramas: 
5 >on 4 4 a -᾿ , ΓΙ 
ey@oa: τὴν καινὴν Εἰλένην μιμήσομαι. 


The term καινὴν has been variously interpreted, and in all 
likelihood it refers both to the recent production of the play and 
to the innovations in its plot. In line 1012 Mnesilochus says 
that in making his escape Euripides in the character of Perseus 
has indicated to him that he must assume the character of 
Andromeda. It is on this line that the scholiast says that this 
is very reasonable, because that play was brought out with the 
Helen. I do not see why Rutherford here assumes a lacuna? 
and calls this “‘a fragment of a note, which may perhaps justify 
the inference that the Andromeda and the Helen were both 
exhibited in 412 B.C.”. The note appears to me complete, and 
the inference inevitable. 

The criticism in the Thesmophoriazuse is not so fine as that 
in the Frogs, being here for the most part merely caricature and 


suggesting no principle of esthetic criticism. In one passage 


Aristophanes ridicules the mannerisms and characteristics of 


Euripides, which appear markedly in the scene in the Helen 


which he is caricaturing ; see Thesm., lines 915 f. : 


λαβέ με λαβέ pe, πόσι, περίβαλε δὲ χέρας, 


/ ΄ » ’ Μ 4 vw > Vv 
φέρε σε κύσω, aTrayé μ᾽ aTray’ ἄπαγ᾽ ἄπαγέ με. 


1 Meineke, Aristoph. Comeediz, I, Commentatio, p. xliii. 
2Op. cit., I, p. 4-9. 

















117 


He achieved a greater success than this seven years later in the 
celebrated song of Glauce in the Frogs. 

The fate of the flower-woman who can no longer earn her 
living, because Euripides has spoiled the market for her gar- 


lands by persuading men that there are no gods, 


“ . e - 7 - 
νῦν δ᾽ οὗτος ἐν ταῖσιν τραγῳδίαις ποιῶν 


\ ” ΄ς » ’; » = , 
τους ἀνδρας QAVQATTETTELKEY OUK ELVAL θεούς εἶ 


refers to the tone of the plays from the Andromache down the 
to the Helen (417-412) in their bitterness against oracles and 
popular religious conceptions. 

Besides the indications in the play of Aristophanes, there is 
a passage in the Electra of Euripides which may be interpreted 
in the light of facts as an announcement of the forthcoming 
Helen. ‘This is in lines 1280 ff. : 


“Ἑλένη te Garver: Ipwréws yap ἐκ δόμων 
ἥκει λιποῦσ᾽ Αἴγυπτον, οὐδ᾽ ἦλθεν Φρύγας, 
Ζεὺς δ᾽, ὡς ἔρις γένοιτο καὶ φόνος βροτῶν, 


εἴδωλον ᾿Ελένης ἐξέπεμψ᾽ εἰς Ἴλιον. 


This is usually understood as pointing forward to the Helen, 
though some have taken it asa reference to a play already 
published, such a reference as that in the Orestes to the plot 
of the Andromache, and that in the Ion to the plot of the 
Erechtheus. Since everything else points to 413 for the Electra 
and since we have good tradition for the date 412 for the 
Helen, this passage must refer to the yet unpublished play, 
which evidently was at least outlined in Euripides’s mind, if 
not composed, when he wrote these lines in the Electra. 

The question of the relation of the Helen and the Tauric 
Iphigenia has been discussed already. The Helen has evi- 
dently drawn upon that play for its plot and shows in some 
respects an advance in technique on it and the Jon in the 
recognition-scenes, in respect both of probability and of metre. 


1Thesm., vv. 450 ff. 
2 Masqueray, op. cit., p. 252. 





118 


In metrical and verbal style the Helen is characteristic of 


its period. It is very long, the lyric parts are expanded, the 
presence of the chorus is unmotived (cf. Bergk, op. cit., III, p. 
551: “ Wie die Anwesenheit hellenischer Frauen am Nilstrom 
zu rechtfertigen sei, hat der Dichter, der es mit dem Motiviren 
nicht so genau nimmt, verschwiegen’’), and their songs are 
often irrelevant. The iambic trimeter is marked by frequent 
resolutions, the play coming between the Ion and the Pheenisse 


in this respect, and the frequent concomitant of this laxity of 


the trimeter, the trochaic tetrameter, appears in an excited 
dialogue between Theoclymenus and the chorus. The duet 
between Menelaus and Helen, as well as the κομμός, is of the 
unsymmetric type. Masqueray comments thus: “ Tout le 
lyrisme de l’Héléne, ἃ part la chante de reconnaissance, est 


dailleurs d’une banalité qui sent la décadence”’’. 


The par dos 
illustrates that subordination of the chorus which so character- 
izes the later work of Euripides. Definite references to politi- 
cal events of the day do not appear in the play. In compos- 
ing the choral passages in vv. 1107 ff. the poet must have had 
in mind the suffering and losses occasioned by the Syracusan 
war, though his theme is the Trojan. 


THE PHNISS. 

The ancient testimonies which we possess concerning the 
date of the Phoenisse do not fix it exactly, but assign it with 
sufficient clearness to Euripides’s last years. This dating is 
borne out by internal evidence. The statements which refer to 
the time of its appearance are found in scholia on the Birds 
and Frogs of Aristophanes and in an hypothesis of the play 
emanating from Aristophanes of Byzantium. According to 
the well-known scholion of the Ravenna manuscript on verse 
53 of the Frogs the Andromeda appeared in 412, and the 
Thesmophoriazuse of the following year, which is so largely 
given up to parodies on Euripides, contains a parody of a 


1Td., ib., p. 212. 











119 


line from the Andromeda. Cf. the scholion on Thesm. 1015 ° 
φίλαι, παρθένοι φίλαι : παρὰ τὰ ἐξ ’Avdpomedas Εὐριπίδου, φιλαι 
παρθένοι, φίλαι μοι. τὰ δὲ ἐπιφερόμενα παρὰ τὸν αὐτὸν χορόν. 
Another scholion on verse 424 of the Birds? speaks of the 
verse as ἐκ τῶν μηδέπω διδαχθεισῶν Φοινισσῶν. The hypothe- 
sis of Aristophanes of Byzantium assigns the play to the 
archonship of the unknown Nausicrates, believed by Dindorf 
to be “ suffectus ”, and by Bergk to have been an ὑποδιδάσκαλος ὃ 
The terminus post quem for the play is evidently 412 B. C. 
It has been argued by Jahn, Wilamowitz, and Wecklein that, as 
Euripides spent the last year of his life in Macedonia, the range 
of possible dates for bringing out the play is narrowed to 411-- 
408. Zirndorfer‘ prefers 410 on the ground that the dialogue 
between Jocasta and Polynices on the sorrows of exile refers to 
the speech which Alcibiades made at Samos in 411-410°, in 
an assembly of the soldiers in which he lamented the misfor- 
tunes of his own exile. Wecklein® points out that this would 
suit the year 409 or 408 as well as 410, since the question of 
the return of Alcibiades was one that filled the minds of the 
Athenians down to the very day when he returned to Athens and 


was received with open arms by the people in spite of the omen 
of the veiled Athena’. The speeches of the ὄχλος from Athens 
and Pirseus, who flocked down to welcome him in 407 “, treat 
Alcibiades’s exile as greatly undeserved and himself as one 


whose action against his native country was justified by the 
treatment which he had received at the hands of his enemies. 
There is certainly a striking parallel in the conception of 


. 


Polynices, the ill-treated younger brother, which Euripides pre- 


‘Rutherford, op. cit., 11, p. 500. 

? Dindorf, Adnot. ad Aristoph., II, I, p. 602. 
83 Bergk, Griech. Litt., Il, 561. 

‘Zirndorfer, cited by Fix, Paley, Wecklein, etc. 
>Thuc. VIII, 81. 

6 Wecklein, Phcenisse, Leipzig, 1894, pp. 20-21. 
™Xen. Hell., I, 11 ff. 

5. Xen. op. cit., I, 13, 17. 





120 


sents in the Pheenisse. One line, in my opinion, may have a 
special significance with reference to the exile of Alcibiades. 
Plutarch, in speaking of the versatility of Alcibiades, tells of 
the fame that came to him in Sparta because of his conformity 
to Spartan ways. ‘“ When they saw him”, he says, “ with his 
uncut hair, his cold baths, his coarse bread and black broth, 
they could hardly believe that such a man ever kept a cook, or 
saw a perfumer, or brought himself to touch a robe of Milesian 
purple” *. 

Plutarch continues: ἣν γὰρ ὡς πᾶσι μία δεινότης αὕτη τῶν 
πολλῶν ἐν αὐτῷ καὶ μηχανὴ θήρας ἀνθρώπων συνεξομοιοῦσθαι 
καὶ συνομοπαθεῖν τοῖς ἐπιτηδεύμασι καὶ ταῖς διαίταις ὀξυτέρας 
τρεπομένῳ τροπάς τοῦ χαμαιλέοντος. πλὴν ἐκεῖνος μὲν ὡς λέγεται 
πρὸς ἕν ἐξαδυνατεῖ χρῶμα τὸ λευκὸν ἀφομοιοῦν ἑαυτόν, ᾿Αλκι- 
βιάδῃ δὲ διὰ χρηστῶν ἰόντι καὶ πονηρῶν ὁμοίως οὐδὲν ἣν ἀμίμη- 


50.9.9 » 7 » 9 > ; ; > , 
TOV Ovo ἀνεπιτήδευτον, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν Σπάρτῃ γυμναστικος, εὐτελής, 


/ 3 9 / ; :] ; et , , 
σκυθρωπός, ἐν ᾿Ιταλίᾳ χλιδανός, ἐπιτερπῆς, ῥάθυμος, ἐν Θράκῃ 


μεθυστικός, ἱππαστικός, Τισσαφέρνῃ δὲ τῷ σατράπῃ συνὼν ὑπερέ. 
βαλεν ὄγκῳ καὶ πολυτελείᾳ τὴν ἸΠερσικὴν μεγαλοπρέπειαν, οὐχ 
ἑαυτὸν ἐξιστὰς οὕτω ῥᾳδίως εἰς ἕτερον ἐξ ἑτέρου τρόπον οὐδὲ πᾶσαν 
δεχόμενος τῷ ἤθει μεταβολὴν κ. τ. 2. 

To this notable adaptability on the part of Alcibiades, which 
Plutarch distinctly says was not to his pleasure, but was the 
result of policy, may be referred lines 371-375 of the Phe- 
nisse : 


Δ \ / > » 
Ilo. ὃν μὲν μέγιστον, οὐκ ἔχει παρρησίαν. 
-“ » δ - 
lo. δοῦλον Tos εἶπας μὴ λέγειν ἅ τις φρονεῖ. 
\ A , 
Ilo. τὰς τῶν κρατούντων ἀμαθίας φέρειν χρεών. 
\ on , “ lal ~ 
lo. καὶ τοῦτο λυπρόν, συνασοφεῖν τοῖς μὴ σοφοῖς. 
> > > \ , 
Ilo. ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τὸ κέρδος παρὰ φύσιν δουλευτέον. 


1 * ™ , . ‘ ~ Ld ~ ~ Ν 

Plut. ΑἸ]ο., I, 28, 5. λακωνίζων ὥσθ᾽ ὁρῶντας ἐν χρᾷ κουριῶντα καὶ ψυχρολου- 
τουντὰ καὶ μᾶς) συνόντα καὶ ζωμᾷ μέλανι χρώμενον ἀπιστεῖν καὶ διαπορεῖν εἴποτε 
μάγειρον ἔπι τῆς οἰκίας οὗτος ὁ ἀνὴρ ἔσχεν ἢ προσέβλεψε μυρεψὸν ἢ Μιλησίας 
ἠνέσχετο θιγεῖν χλανίδος, 











121 


There may be here a thrust at Spartan ἀμαθία and rudeness, 
which Alcibiades adopted εἰς τὸ κέρδος, unpleasant as he may 
have found the enforced society of Spartans, longing as he 
did for Athens. Cf. his speech at Sparta, Thuc. VI, 92, 3-4, 
though this is of course colored by Thucydidean afterthought. 

Klotz suggests a reference to Alcibiades in 7 ποθεινὸς φίλοις 
in line 320, and Zirndorfer refers to him lines 358-360! : 


μῆτερ, φρονῶν εὖ κοὐ φρονῶν ἀφικόμην 

» ‘ > ¥ > > > 4 » 
ἐχθροὺς ἐς ἄνδρας" ἀλλ᾽ ἀναγκαίως ἔχει 
πατρίδος ἐρᾶν ἅπαντας" ὃς δ᾽ ἄλλως λέγει 


λόγοισι χαίρει, τὸν δὲ νοῦν ἐκεῖσ᾽ ἔχει. 


It seems on the whole entirely reasonable to suppose that 
Euripides, whose imagination had been touched by the young 
Alcibiades and who celebrated his victories in lyric verse, should 
have been interested in his home-coming and have hoped good 
from it for Athens, even though he had words of denunciation 
for him in the time when Athens faced destruction in the Syra- 
cusan war because of Acibiades’s efforts against her. 

From the data at hand it appears impossible to date the play 
more exactly than 411-408. Wecklein argues for the later 
date as being more in accord with the phrase of the scholiast, 
τῶν πρὸ ὀλίγου διδαχθέντων. 

The length of the play, its lack of restraint in diction (I note 
22 cases of ἐπέζευξις), the laxity of the iambic trimeter and the 
use of the trochaic tetrameter in the dialogues, the irrelevancy 
of the choruses, and the expansion of the lyric parts mark it as 
one of the latest dramas. 

The question of the connection between the Phcenisse and 
Sophocles’s CEdipus Coloneus is complicated by the question of 
the probable extent of the corruption in the closing part of the 
Pheenisse. All recognize that this part of the play has under- 
gone changes in transmission, and some agree with Wecklein ” 


! Both cited by Wecklein, op. cit., p. 21. 
2 Wecklein, op. cit., p. 14 and p. 15, note. 





122 


in rejecting the entire close from line 1581. Wilamowitz says! : 
“Der Schluss der Phcenisse ist also von Schauspielerhinden 
zugestuzt: verloren sind wenige Zeilen ohne Belang”. Wila- 
mowitz’s position appears to be the safer one. 

There will be found, however, in retaining the lines, espe- 
cially lines 1703-9, no justification for those who would disre- 
gard the tradition and put the Gidipus Coloneus as early as 411 
or before it. The reference here is such as Euripides could 
make to the traditional story, well-known to his audience, or 
to the story as given ina play of his own. Such a reference 
to the work of his rival Sophocles is unparalled and out of the 
question. It appears that Wilamowitz is right in saying: 
“Ks ist ausser Zweifel dass Sophokles die Anregung dazu, 
seine eigene Heimatssage zu bearbeiten, aus den Phcenisse des 
Euripides empfangen hat.” *. 


THE ORESTES. 


The date of the Orestes is fixed by a scholion on line 371 of 
the play: πρὸ yap Διοκλέους, ἐφ᾽ οὗ τὸν ᾿Ορέστην ἐδίδαξε, 
Λακεδαιμονίων πρεσβευσαμένων περὶ εἰρήνης ἀπιστήσαντες 
᾿Αθηναῖοι οὐ προσήκαντο ἐπὶ ἄρχοντος Θεοπόμπου" οὕτως ἱστορεῖ 
Φιλόχορος. The archonship of Diocles fell in the second year 
of the ninety-second olympiad, that is 409-408 B. C. There 
are apparently some political allusions in the play. The schol- 
last says that Cleophon is meant in lines 903 ff., 


> / > / 3 ’ ’ 
ἀνήρ τις ἀθυρόγλωσσος, ἰσχύων θράσει, 
᾿Αργεῖος οὐκ ᾿Αργεῖος, ἠναγκασμένος, 
UA / > al / 
θορύβῳ te πίσυνος κἀμαθεῖ παρρησίᾳ 
\ » 5» » \ ‘a “ 
πιθανὸς ἔτ᾽ αὐτοὺς περιβαλεῖν κακῷ τινι K. τ. Δ. 


He sees too a reference to the bad influence of Cleophon in 
line 771, δεινὸν of πολλοί, κακούργους ὅταν ἔχωσι προστάτας. 
This reference seems practically certain, for the description 


1 Wilamowitz, Hermes, 18, p. 240, note. 
* Hermes, 18, p. 239. 





123 


coincides remarkably with the notorious characteristics of 
Cleophon. He is often mentioned by his contemporaries and 
by writers of the next generation, and practically always with 
dislike and disgust. A notable exception is Lysias, Agoratus, 
8 ff For characteristics of him, cf. Ar., Frogs, 68 δὲ, 


Κλεοφῶντος, ἐφ᾽ οὗ χείλεσιν ἀμφιλάλοις 
δεινὸν ἐπιβρέμεται Θρῃκία χελιδών 
ἐπὶ βάρβαρον ἑζομένη πέταλον, 


JEschin., II, 76: 


Κλεοφῶν δὲ ὁ λυροποιός, ὃν πολλοὶ δεδεμένον ἐν πέδαις ἐμνη- 
μόνευον, παρεγγραφεὶς αἰσχρῶς πολίτης καὶ διεφθαρκὼς νομῇ 
χρημάτων τὸν δῆμον, ἀποκόψειν ἠπείλει μαχαίρᾳ τὸν τράχηλον, 


εἴ τις τῆς εἰρήνης μνησθήσεται, 
Aristot., Ath. Pol., 34: 


/ e \ lal A 
τὸ δὲ πλῆθος οὐκ ὑπήκουσεν ἐξαπατηθέντες ὑπὸ TOU Κλεοφῶν- 
> \ 3 \ 3 4 
τος, ὃς ἐκώλυσε γενέσθαι THY εἰρήνην ἐλθὼν εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν 
4 > / 5 Ν \ 
μεθύων καὶ θώρακα ἐνδεδυκὼς, οὐ φάσκων ἐπιτρέψειν, ἐᾶν μὴ 


aA \ , 
πάσας ἀφιῶσι Λακεδαιμόνιοι τὰς πόλεις. 


The description in the Orestes of the leader of the populace, 
strong in his impudence, a Greek, but no Greek, one who has 
forced his way, relying on his blustering and his unbridled, 
ignorant tongue, gifted with some eloquence to the ruin of his 
countrymen, is so vivid a picture and so tallies with the account 
of Cleophon given by the various writers who mention him, a 
δήμου προστάτης of uncertain antecedents, appealing to the 
lowest mob by his drunken, military bluster about cutting the 
throat of the men who dared say peace, that I cannot agree with 
Wedd 1 in thinking this a fancy picture. “It seems improb- 
able”, says he, “that this passage is meant to be anything more 
than a description of the typical evil demagogue”. But Cleo- 


'Wedd, N., Orestes, 1895. 





124 


phon appears to have outdone them all and he was προστάτης 
τοῦ δήμου ' at this time and stood in the way of the peace which 
Euripides praises at the close as τὴν καλλίστην θεὸν Ἑἐρήνην, 
on which the scholiast comments : 

πρεσβευσαμένων δὲ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων ov προσήκαντο Tas 
σπονδὰς οἱ ᾿Αθηναῖοι. 

The scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs, line 1532, has been 
vindicated against Grote” in his comment on Cleophon’s con- 
nection with the Spartan overtures of peace after Arginuse by 
the discovery of the complete text of Aristotle’s Constitution of 
Athens. There is every probability that the scholiast on these 
passages of the Orestes is right in the application of the verses 
and the historical facts given, since his comments are borne out 
by data from other sources. 

The style of the Orestes is so extreme that it has been main- 
tained that this drama was of the sort to which the Alcestis 
belongs, a substitute for the satyr-drama. It shows a far greater 
license than the Alcestis in metre and exceeds even the Cyclops 
in the matter of resolutions. The subject, however, is more 
akin to tragedy and presents a deep problem of human life, 
notwithstanding the comic scene of the Phrygian and the con- 
ventionally happy ending. Wilamowitz, who believes that 
Sophocles’s Electra followed that of Euripides, holds that 
the Orestes is a reply to the Sophoclean Electra*. ““ Hohes 
Interesse’’, says he, “gewiihrt es auch, zu verfolgen wie Euripides 
sich gegen die Sophokleische Elektra verhalten hat. Dafiir 
ist sein Orestes das wichtigste Document. Hatte Sophokles 
auf das alte Epos zuriickgegriffen, so that hier Euripides des- 
gleichen. Er giebt gewissermassen eine Fortsetzung und damit 
eine Kritik des Sophokleischen Dramas.” 

The play is certainly a continuation of Euripides’s own 
Electra in its criticism of the Sophoclean play. And, as M. 


1 Arist., Pol. Ath., 28. 


2 Hist. of Greece, viii, pp. 210-211, foot-note. London, 1849. 
3 Hermes, 18, p. 240. 


125 


Weil says': “Que nous sommes loin d’Eschyle! La my- 
thologie s’est transformée en psychologie ”’. 

Since it is, much more than the Alcestis, and exceedingly much 
more than the Helen and the Andromeda, a play with a moral 
problem, its licenses are not to be explained on the ground that 
it isa pro-satyric drama — of which there is no proof — but they 
must be attributed to the period at which it was composed. It 
belonged to the last tetralogy that Euripides gave in Athens 
and shows in a more extravagant degree than any other of his 
extant plays all the mannerism of music and style which he 
had introduced. It has more resolutions in the trimeter, more 
repeated words, and more innovations in the lyric parts than 
any of the rest. There are very beautiful passages in it, even 
among those marked most strongly with his mannerisms, such 
as the much-cited 

πότνια πότνια νύξ, 

ὑπνοδότειρα τῶν πολυπόνων βροτῶν, 

ἐρεβόθεν ἴθι, μόλε μόλε κατάπτερος 

τὸν ᾿Αγαμεμνόνιον ἐπὶ δόμον, ὑπὸ γὰρ ἀλγέων, 

ὑπὸ τε συμφορᾶς 

διοιχόμεθ᾽ οἰχόμεθα. 
But the whole is not finely worked out. One cannot say of it, 
πάνυ yap χαριέντως καὶ μεμελημένως ἔχει. Masqueray’s state- 
ment with regard to the lyric portion holds good of the whole 
play :! “Nous savons que l’Oreste a été écrit ἃ une époque de 
trouble. Peut-¢tre Euripide a-t-il été forcé de travailler un 


peu vite.”’. 


Tue BaccH# AND THE IPHIGENIA IN AULIS. 
These two plays were brought out in Athens by Euripides 
the younger after the death of Euripides. This statement is 
given by a scholion on 1. 67 of the Frogs of Aristophanes : 
οὕτω γὰρ καὶ ai διδασκαλίαι φέρουσι, τελευτήσαντος Εὐριπίδου 


1 Sept Tragédies d’ Euripide, p. 675. 
2Op. cit., p. 252. 





120 


\ e\ > ~ ‘4 ς ’ ς 4 ’ » 
τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ δεδιδαχέναι ὁμωνύμως (or ὁμώνυμον) ἐν ἄστει 


᾿Ιφιγένειαν τὴν ἐν Αὐλίδι, ᾿Αλκμαίωνα, Βάκχας. These plays, 
with a satyr-play, gained the first prize’. The Bacche and I. 
A. both show plainly by their technique that they belong to 
the latest stage of the poet’s work. The Bacche shows that 
work in its perfection. This cannot be said of the Aulid Iphi- 
genia, for all its beauties; and moreover that play has not 
reached us in its original form, but has suffered much from in- 
terpolation. Both plays show great freedom in the metre, 
almost equalling the Orestes in this respect. The Aulid Iphi- 
genia, in particular, is marked by the use of the trochaic tetra- 
meter beyond any other extant Euripidean play. The choruses 
in the Bacche are notable in that they correspond to the situa- 
tion and the plot of the play, while those of the Iphigenia show 
the characteristic later irrelevancy. The repetitions in the 
Bacche are very frequent, but this is in accord with the pas- 
sionate feeling of the whole play. There are traces in the Bac- 
che of its composition in Macedonia in the description or men- 
tion of features of the Macedonian landscape — Pieria, Olympus, 
the river Axios (lines 409ff., 560 ff.). 

Among the interesting problems connected with the two plays 
is that of their relation to Euripides’s conception of divine and 
human things. This question, of course, is of special moment 
with reference to the Bacche. Berlage’*, who traces in Euri- 
pides’s work three stages of opinion about religion, correspond- 
ing to three periods of his life, sees in the Phcenisse, Bacche 
and Aulid Iphigenia an abandonment of bitterness toward divine 
things and an acquiescence in the decrees of heaven. It is diffi- 
cult, however, to be mathematically exact in marking off periods 
of psychical change, and there is great danger of overlooking or 
pre-conceiving facts when one has a theory of the existence of 
such periods. The Orestes, which follows the Phcenisse and 
cannot long precede the Bacche and the Aulid Iphigenia, is 


1 Cf. Suidas, Εὐριπίδης. 
? Berlage, J., Commentatio de Eur. philosopho, Leyden, 1888, pp. 17 ff. 


127 


certainly a disturbing factor for the theory of reconciliation 
with religion in Euripides’s last days. The grandeur of the 
tragedy of the Bacche is lost and its effect becomes trivial, if it 
is regarded, according to the usual interpretation given of it, 
as a recantation of Euripides’s old attitude toward religion ac- 
companied with the moral that “ the understanding of man can- 
not subvert ancestral tradition”?!. It revolts the intellectual 
and moral sense alike to suppose for a moment that Euripides 
found perfect deity in Dionysus and had no sympathy with his 
victims. “Es kann niemand den Euripides arger verkennen, 
als wenn er in ihnen [ἡ. 6. den Bakchen] eine bekehrung zum 
glauben der alten weiber sieht. Teiresias ist mit nichten der 
triiger seiner ideen, und Dionysos, der so grausam an Pentheus 
sich riicht, ist mit nichten sein gott. er dramatisiert diesen my- 
thos, fiihrt die in ihm liegenden conflicte durch.” 2 


Miller and Donaldson, I, p. 499. 
ἢ Wilamowitz, Herakles, I, p. 134. 








LIFE, 


I was born in Robbinstown, Maine, received my preparatory 


training for college in the High School of Watertown, Massa- 
chusetts, and from private instruction. I entered Radcliffe 
College in 1884 and was graduated in 1888, During the next 
five years I taught in the Cambridge School for Girls and pur- 
sued graduate courses in Radcliffe College. In 1893 I came 
to Vassar College as Instructor in Greek and Latin. In 1899 
I went abroad as Fellow of the Woman’s Educational So- 
ciety of Boston, and spent two semesters in study in Berlin. 
I also visited Greece and Italy. From 1900 to 1903 I took 
graduate work in Columbia University, and received the degree 
of doctor of philosophy in 1903. My work in classics in Cam- 
bridge was done chiefly in the classes of Professors Goodwin, 
Greenough, Smith and Wright, to whom I am greatly indebted. 
In Germany I attended lectures of Professors Diels, von Wil- 
amowitz-Moellendorff, Kirchhoff, Pernice and others. My 
work in Columbia was under the direction of Professors Perry, 
Wheeler and Earle, to whom I offer my sincerest thanks. 1 
owe an especial debt of gratitude to Professor Earle, under 
whose direction this dissertation was written, 





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